We all understand that work culture is important as it enhances productivity, increases retention and make your company more attractive to new hires. Culture is based on the set of beliefs and values, and it fundamentally affect your actions your employees do at work as well.
IDENTIFY WEAK CULTURES
You must first identify what is your current culture you have. Are your employees constantly engaged, or are they very confused about what is expected of them? Do you constantly see signs of verbal gossips, or verbal and physical abuse? Are you also hearing whether feedback is useless since Management do not consider that as well and that they are underpaid for all the roles and duties they are assigned within the Company?
You will then want to understand what is it that cause your employees this mindset? What exactly is the actions that have resulted in this behavior traits. Through understanding what are the infrastructure that have resulted in this culture, you might want to act on it.
LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES
The best person to explain to you why the culture is being set today, is to have a quick chat with your employees – whether is it a focus group session, one to one communication or data in the form of quantitative or qualitative. You will want to make them feel validated and that they matter.
START FROM MANAGEMENT
Fundamentally, for the culture to be set right – your management must set the good examples as well. You will want to understand what has caused or resulted in this culture. Do management take feedback seriously and do they recognize excellent work?
FIXING THE INFRASTRUCTURE
You must understand that people are resistant to change – generally be it management or employees. You should set priorities on what are the things to change. Evaluate how big your actions can cause based on just one change. You could also identify the influencers in the team and start the change from them. Generally, once accepted by them – acceptance rates from the others would be higher as well.
If your common feedback that everyone is overworked, then it is time to propose realistic deadlines and workloads. If you need to hire more to distribute the workload more evenly, you might want to consider that as well. It could be good to set in accountability to ensure that your employees are aware of what they are responsible for. It is especially important for management to show recognition of excellent work done to constantly motivate employees.
If communication is a problem, you might want to ensure feedback sessions are conducted regularly and for management to have more transparent communication with their employees to reduce confusion and hence, frustration.
REVIEW THE PLANS
Constantly seek feedback and ensure you are going on the right track. There will never be any harm on hearing more perspectives. Give your changes some time to be implemented, and do not rush the process. Gradually, you should assess if there is any change in the work place culture and constantly tweak to finally have the culture you require in your team.