Here’s A Quick Way To Positively Impact Your Company Culture

Did you know that employees value culture and career growth at almost 2x the rate they value compensation and benefits?  Organizational culture used to be something that was created as a by-product of processes and systems in a company. It just happened and leaders didn’t pay much attention to it. Well, that’s no longer the case. Culture is now one of the top priorities for Senior Leaders, regarded as a corporate asset to be actively shaped with intent and purpose. It is a competitive differentiator that employees, customers and stakeholders now look for. Culture is described by many as “the way things are done around here”. What drives “how things are done” is a system of values and behaviours.  Not values and behaviours that are written in fancy documents and on websites, that’s the easy part. It’s the values and behaviours that are rewarded by the systems and processes in your organization.  In your company, is there alignment between the advertised values and behaviours and those that are rewarded?  Wells Fargo is a classic example of misalignment. Their Senior Leaders propagated one set of values while the employees felt forced by a set of unwritten rules to demonstrate other behaviours. Just this month, revelations have surfaced in Canada about employees at TDBank feeling pressured into selling products to customers. So how do you know what values and behaviours are truly demonstrated by employees in your company? The simple answer is to ask. Systems and processes are put in place with the best intentions to bring consistency and compliance. Unfortunately, there are often unintended by-products that can impact employee behaviour causing…