If you can create a great culture in your organisation, everything else will fall into place. Great culture results in a happy and stable workforce, reliable teamwork, high productivity, increased profits and the realisation of business plans.

So how to achieve it……

Listen and Respond to your team. Your employees are your most important asset and when they feel valued, they will be loyal, perform at their very best and take pride in the organisation and their work. By listening to their views and their needs, and most importantly, responding, you will develop a strong team. The responses may not always be what you want to hear but by responding you are showing that you value their input and encouraging a culture of open communication.

Lifestyle benefits such as flexi-time, home working and social events can make your organisation an attractive and caring place to work. Understanding that an employee will be less stressed and pressured if they can shift their working day to 8 am to 4 pm to suit out of work commitments will result in commitment and flexibility in return. Social events, whether a summer picnic or a sharing lunch once a month in the office, will bond the team closer and help to create the culture that you desire.

Charity involvement in the workplace, particularly a charity which is local or chosen by the team, shows that the organisation has “heart” and appreciates individuals and people, not just processes and profit.

Development and training can create a great culture not only through the actual teachings of how to behave in the workplace but also through the team feeling invested in, and once again, valued. This will encourage the right culture to develop. This could be through regular team away days, or individual training programmes or mentoring schemes.

Innovation and idea generation forums will show employees that you value their input and expertise and that the team is an integral part of the organisation

Once you have put in place what you need to encourage a great culture to develop, how can you measure the success of that culture and the impact that it is having?

Initially, we would suggest four ways of measuring the success of your organisation’s culture:

Absenteeism  – you should see your absenteeism figures drop and be maintained at a low level.

Turnover of employees will be low – be aware that this is not to say you should fear managing poor performers but that talent retention will be high.

Customer Retention will be high. This is due to excellent levels of customer service, strong relationship building and continuity of the team.

Feedback will be willingly given and be of value. Going back to our first point, listen and respond. Ask the team what they think of working for your organisation, what kind of culture do they think exists and what can be done to improve it. Undertake satisfaction surveys and staff surveys on a regular basis, and respond to those results.

The first step is to establish what culture your organisation currently has, and how you can move to the culture you want. We can help you assess this, and provide a framework for driving development in the right direction.

If you would like to know more about how MAD-HR can support you with creating a great culture, we would love to have a chat. You can either arrange a free one-hour consultation or call us about how we can support you on 01473 360160.

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