Culture is not only found in a petri dish ... is yours positive?
- 5 basic steps you can take towards establishing a positive and inclusive high performance culture.
Organisations, like an open petri dish, will grow cultures that are not always desirable unless careful nurturing and proactive precautions are taken.
This blog is aimed to give a comprehensive insight into the world of Intrepidus HR to inspire businesses to improve themselves and their people. As culture is one of the most important features of any given organisation, we start by identifying 5 basic steps you can take towards establishing a positive and inclusive high performance culture.
How to create a good culture? – Start with the basics.
Developing a great company culture is not easy. You have to establish clear processes for communication and feedback, which takes sustained effort and nurturing. An organisational culture will develop even if you do nothing about it, but in most cases, it will not turn out to be the culture you want.
Most companies aspire to be companies of choice – the coveted organisation that’s extremely difficult to join due to the abundance of high potential and high performing employees already in place, and the equal abundance of high quality candidates for any vacancies that occur. Similarly, great companies are the ones that nobody wants to leave due to the opportunities to make a difference, professional recognition and development.
Creating and sustaining a high performance culture requires even more work because employees are inspired to provide vast amounts of discretionary effort and want to be held accountable for their successes and shortcomings. But the hard work pays off: high performance cultures offer superior opportunities for employee engagement, recognition and development, generate extraordinary loyalty and return on investment.
To aspire to and achieve a positive culture, we recommend 5 basic steps that can be taken and must be sustained to establish your cultural foundation.
1. Listening – Ensure your organization has established mechanisms for listening to staff. This can be a range of activities including monthly one on one performance feedback meetings at a team and/or individual level. In addition, it may mean that you have an employee suggestion scheme in place or a means to collect improvement ideas and take note of practices the organisation has in place that may be redundant or in need of review.
2. Hearing – Are your employees being heard? The easy way to ensure it is to ask them if they felt heard. This can also be ascertained via confidential and anonymous employee engagement surveys. This is the path to having an empowered workforce.
3. Action – Does your organization collect the information your employees are sharing with you and does it get analysed and distilled to decision makers, the CEO and Board? Do you act on the suggestions of employees that the analysis indicates as being of significance?
4. Feedback – Does your organisation provide feedback to employees on all that you are being told? Providing formal feedback, supplemented by planned informal feedback, of all issues the employees raised within a set time frame demonstrates that they have been heard. Even if their improvement idea cannot be implemented, it will demonstrate your recognition and respect towards your employees. Especially when you provide an explanation as to why a particular practice, for example, cannot be altered and the consequences or circumstances are explained.
5. Consistency – Once begun, the communication and feedback must be provided with consistency and within the previously set time-lines. Once communication and feedback mechanisms are established and are perceived to be reliable and ongoing, the quality of communication will improve.
Design • Implement • Support
Through our blog, we wish to give you a comprehensive insight into the world of Intrepidus HR, where our overall goal is to inspire businesses to improve themselves and their people.
Do you wish to discuss a particular business improvement topic or even contribute a guest Blog article? If yes, please contact Simon Campbell at Intrepidus Human Resource Consulting.
If you or your organisation requires input or assistance in establishing or enhancing your positive organisational culture, please contact Intrepidus Human Resources Consulting for assistance. Intrepidus can assist with the design, implementation and support of employee surveys, analysis and action plans, employee briefings, and employee communication and engagement initiatives.
Furthermore, contact Intrepidus for assistance with one on one performance feedback for teams and individuals and all your complex human work issues.
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Intrepidus Human Resource Consulting
Intrepidus is a human resources and industrial relations consultancy based out of Melbourne. We help clients with difficult people issues, HR & IR strategy, and more. If you want to find out how we assist with workplace issues, you can contact us at info@intrepidus.com.au or give us a ring on +61 401 716 818.