As your company grows, you can expect growing pains and threats to your culture. Whether you create it or not, your business culture happens. There are at least three steps needed to fashion your culture the way you want.
Therefore, you should take every precaution to insure your culture remains intact.
Simultaneously, you need to productively grow while retaining your talented employees and recruiting the right people.
You should devote equal resources to employee programs and communication. So, you need to plan accordingly.
Here are three strategies:
1. Make internal communication a priority
Running a micro one or two-person business is a lot different than employing a big staff. That goes for communication. Communication is more challenging for a large number of employees. But it’s a No. 1 priority in order to achieve an engaged, productive team of workers.
The last thing you want is for employees to feel is their work is less-important than before. You want to engage them so they don’t feel as though they’re isolated. That’s a frustrating feeling for people.
Employees will appreciate an open, transparent communication. Also, don’t make the mistake of ignoring your telecommuting employees or workers in multiple locations away from your office. That’s how rumors and poor morale start.
Communication promotes trust, which is important. Make sure you don’t have a trust gap with workers.
2. Invest in your human capital
Investing in your employees starts with listening. Employees will feel validated and will be more content to work for you, if you listen and respond whenever feasible.
From time to time, you’ll identify workplace policies that need to be updated. But you’ll want your policies to be accepted and followed by your employees. Employees are often uncomfortable with change even if it’s necessary for a business turnaround.
You’ll need high morale, which propels profits.
So market your HR-policy changes to your employees.
If you haven’t regularly appraised your employees with feedback and expectations, start now. Continue the practice of conducting performance appraisals.
This will give you a mechanism to be responsive to their concerns as you convey your values and vision, and monitor their progress so they hit your targets.
Take steps to recruit the right staff for your culture.
You should devote equal resources to employee programs and communication.
3. Incentivize your staff
Recognition for good work is appreciated by 70 percent of workers – a great motivator for high performance. But it’s not always about money as non-financial incentives motivate most employees.
Recognize and reward your workers for performance publically and individually. Devise social activities for team bonding and a great work environment.
Savvy employers know how to profit from their human capital. Such knowledge is a powerful weapon for high performance in a competitive marketplace. Furthermore, there’s a correlation among excellent sales, happy customers, and high employee morale.
Proverbially speaking, employees are where the tire meets the road. They daily experience firsthand a wide variety of problems so it behooves you to motivate employees to offer profitable ideas.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related tips:
10 Management Attributes for Effective Communication — Communication skills are critical for managers. People with enhanced abilities in communication typically have successful relationships at work and home. Good communicators typically have 10 attributes.
Increase Profits by Hiring Talent with the Best Trait — Enthusiasm — You’ll increase your odds for profits with high-performing employees with the right culture — if you hire for the right personality trait – enthusiastic people. That’s right. Look for people who have the makeup to being committed and who will care for the welfare of your company. You’ll increase your chances for the strongest results.
Hiring for a Small Operation? Conduct Behavioral Interviews — In this economic environment, whether you run a small operation in a big company or you own a small business, you’re wearing many hats. So you need employees who can successfully wear multiple hats, too. What does that entail? It entails several things. To compete successfully, small businesses especially need people who are a good fit culturally.
Management: How to Help Employees to Grow Professionally – Managers owe it to the organization to help their employees grow professionally. It’s hard, time-consuming work. But the return on investment is terrific. The organization benefits from higher employee performance and lower turnover. Strong employee retention obviously saves the employer a lot of time and money.
HR Management – 8 Best Practices in Employee Delegation — Avoid frustration in delegation. Save yourself time and develop your staff for the welfare of your organization. Delegation is a fundamental driver of organizational growth. Managers who are effective in delegation show leadership. They know they’ll be more effective in management and that they’ll develop their employees.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
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