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Every company has a culture, even if you don’t realize it. This culture has been cultivated throughout generations but has–mostly–remained the same, matching the attitudes and values of previous owners and CEOs.
But just because a culture is well-established does not mean it is always the correct type of culture. As with society and the wider world, cultures change, so your company culture should reflect this. Keeping up with cultural and societal changes can significantly impact your brand, which is why it’s so important to know how to bring about cultural change in your business.
How Instigating Cultural Change Can Benefit Your Business
Less Turnover
A toxic office or workplace culture is one of the most common reasons for high turnover, so you need to do everything possible to reduce continuous turnover and bring some consistency to your business. Too much turnover can cost your company more money than you expect when you factor in training costs and loss of productivity. Furthermore, expecting employees that stick around to handle more work without proper compensation will only risk more people walking away.
Increased Reputation
Every company’s success hinges on its reputation. But, you already know that it can take years to build a reputation, only to see it destroyed in an instant with one wrong move. A bad company culture could affect your reputation, especially if word has gotten out from disgruntled employees who believe (rightly or not) that they were mistreated or highlighted issues with your business that are unacceptable in the modern industry.
Better Workplace Efficiency
You might think your company operates perfectly, but that’s rarely the case. There are plenty of things you could do differently to improve workplace efficiency, and improving your company culture is just one of them. By changing how things are done, you can lighten the load for your employees, which will make them more efficient and reduce the risks of burnout or even presenteeism. Soon enough, you’ll see results that demonstrate why a cultural change was so crucial.
Improved Organization
Similarly, your office or workplace will be more organized. Again, there are various ways to achieve this depending on your industry, although it often revolves around technology or logistics. If your workplace is more organized, you will save precious time dealing with clients and customers. You will always be prepared for meetings or presentations. You–and everyone else–will know where everything is so you stop wasting time at work.
Better Relationships
Terrible company culture can take a while to affect everyone, but once it does, it will fester and there is no benefit you can find with this. Over time, your employees will begin to despise one another which will impact their work and their relationships. Everyone will feel like they are the only one pulling their weight or that everyone is out to take their job or criticize them behind their back.
How to Bring About Cultural Change In Your Business
You may think that your business is perfect the way it is, but that is rarely–if ever–the case. There are always ways you can improve your company and boost its standing within the industry. To achieve this, you need to know how to bring about cultural change in your business and what to look for to make that happen.
Identify Common Complaints
The best place to start when trying to change your company culture is to look at the most common employee issues and complaints. This approach should give you a good idea of what is most pressing or which problems your employees encounter most frequently.
Issues can include rude coworkers or bullying or inefficient tech and policies that are detrimental to a productive workday. Although you cannot change everything at once, whether due to your budget or logistics, you can take steps to make effective changes gradually to improve the environment.
Define How to Improve
Once you have discovered what is most pressing in your company, you must define how to improve every aspect of your business. Outlining a plan will help you measure and gauge your progress, while defining metrics or getting feedback from your employees (and even your customers) can give you a more transparent idea of how you are improving. Again, you will not see immediate changes, but that isn’t the point. Instead, you will enjoy steady and positive progress that helps you reach your goals.
Embrace Technology
Although many new businesses and startups depend entirely on technology, this is not the case for every business, especially those around since before Elvis first took to the stage.
Often, these businesses have a slower way of doing things. They are more reliant on what they are used to instead of things that improve efficiency. Embracing technology is a great way to overcome this, and you can find tech for any need, including a field service platform for improving the customer experience and tracking metrics.
Provide Better Training
You should also think about how your training policies have impacted your workplace culture. While you may have started by providing thorough and expert training, you and your employees may have become complacent.
This is common with various businesses, especially when you discover shortcuts that conjure the same results. However, there will come a point when the person who knows how to do things properly leaves, and all that’s left is a selection of half-knowledge. This can pose a significant safety risk to your business, so going back to basics and improving your training can solve multiple problems and prevent even more.
Learn to Measure Your Efforts
You will never know how much work you have done or how much you have achieved if you do not measure your efforts. There are various ways to do this, such as using data and analytics and comparing weeks, months, seasons, and years.
It is not just your sales or contracts you can measure, though. Your employee satisfaction should also be considered, so check various employee issues such as absences, resignations, and write-ups. By comparing them to previous years, you can determine how much you have managed to improve the culture, giving you the momentum to make even more improvements.
Embrace Diversity and Accessibility
The modern company should welcome everyone regardless of who they are or where they came from. You should already have policies in place ensuring you do not discriminate (and you should do that even without policies, anyway) but this doesn’t mean you have fully embraced diversity and accessibility.
There could still be several areas for improvement such as entrance ramps or meeting rooms that are on higher floors and difficult for differently abled employees to reach. You may have cliques within the office who are disrespectful to people from cultures they don’t understand and are empowered by their supposed support. The sooner you discover this and take action, the sooner your business will improve.
Stop Hiring The Same Type of People
Your company will never thrive if you continue to hire the same type of people. If you only bring in employees who are just like you or meet your specific idea of what a model employee is, you end up in a loop of never being told your ideas or practices are affecting your company.
Hiring people from various backgrounds and with different ideas can be the best thing you’ve ever done for your business. It brings a fresh perspective and helps you approach projects from a different angle.
Match the Culture to the Brand
It is easier to improve your company culture if you match it to suit your brand. No matter how long your business has been around, you should know what your brand image is. If you’re looking for a good place to begin when adjusting and improving the culture, look at how your company presents itself. Once you have figured that out, you can focus on what needs to change in your business.
Highlight Causes That Matter
Focusing on charitable causes and dedicating time and effort to highlighting these causes can make a huge difference in your company culture. You can look at fundraising ideas and organize a fun event for your employees, their families, and anyone else. These events can raise awareness about causes that mean something to your employees, so you can feel like you’re all working together to make a difference.
Lead By Example
Leading by exam[ple is arguably the most effective way for you to change the company culture. You need to be someone your employees can look up to and respect, so establishing policies and adopting behavior they can model will make it easier for your business to change its culture. Employees will understand that you are in charge so they know that you are serious about ensuring positive changes that benefit the company but also themselves.
A Change Is Coming
Cultural change does not need to happen overnight, and attempting to do this could cause havoc in your company. Instead, take a slower, more deliberate approach. You won’t satisfy everyone by changing everything about the culture, but the occasional improvement here and there will eventually bring about a cultural change that you can be proud of.
