5 Questions You Should Consider to Improve Company Culture

Companies Not Supportive of This Practice Experience High Turnover, Low Morale

What does the culture of a company have to do with managing the performance and growth of its employees?

Many managers believe performance management is simply delivering periodic performance appraisals to their employees. Their company culture includes a short-sighted approach of hiring quickly to meet immediate needs.

Once the employee is onboard, there may or may not be a period of on-boarding to prepare them to fulfill the requirements of the job. If the hiring process includes periodic reviews, the manager will provide a mandatory appraisal.

Sadly, this employee appraisal may be the only time manager and employee sit down to talk about performance issues.

Oftentimes, businesses whose cultures don’t support employee development experience high turnover and low staff morale. Eventually, this affects the organization’s ability to grow.

On the other hand, a high-performance company culture is often seen to support a much more robust system of performance management, which begins when the job is created.

It then continues through the hiring process, employee on-boarding, periodic reviews and appraisals, and employee development through mentoring, coaching and training.

Take a moment to define the current culture of your company.

If you can’t describe it, let me offer some questions to consider:

• Does the culture of your business provide a strong framework for open communication and collaboration between management and staff?

• Does the culture embrace organizational growth?

• Does it nurture the professional growth of its employees?

• Is the company culture focused on continuous improvement?

• Does everyone within the organization feel motivated and involved enough to enthusiastically embrace organizational goals?

Successful and growing businesses that can answer “yes” to these questions have created a culture in which employees are regarded as their most valuable asset.

So, what can an organization do to turn around unproductive performance management? Consider establishing a well-defined system for hiring, which would begin with creating individual jobs based on long-term organizational needs and on the company’s values and mission.

Next, hire smart. Establish a plan for recruiting, selecting and hiring individuals who are the right fit, not only for the specific job, but also for your company culture.

Clearly communicate expectations during a well-planned on-boarding process and establish open lines of communication between management and staff.

Building and nurturing a culture that supports effective performance development requires leaders committed to investing time and energy into supporting a long-term view, which supports the mission, vision and values of their business, and which leads to providing a strong competitive advantage.