Changing your work culture - where to start?

Work culture happens! It is the result of input and beliefs of everyone in the organisation and is “how we do things here”.

So what do you, as the leader, do if you don’t like it? If you find that your staff are not respecting each other, or your attrition rates are skyrocketing because the team members don’t like it?

It takes time for the culture to form and is difficult to change it. However, the sooner you do, the sooner you will realise the benefits of a positive culture.

Step 1. - Find out how your staff feel about the workplace. Do a survey (anonymous) to get feedback. In some cases, your culture may be such that this will be met with scepticism and caution and you may not get honest feedback. If so, look to get an independent agency in to talk to your staff. InteChange can help here, but there are others who could also do it.

Step 2. Review the results and ascertain the gaps between what you have and what you want - a workforce of very competent workers, who have the skills, the equipment and the working environment, and combine as a team to deliver amazing results for the business.

Step 3. Review your own behaviour as the leader.

• Do you lead by example?

• Are you approachable?

• Do you show vulnerability?

• Do you seek opinions of your team members?

• Is the workplace safe, physically, mentally and emotionally ?

• Do you treat each employee the same?

Step 4. Discuss with your team your views and invite suggestions from them. Start with 1:1s and then open it to a group discussion.

• Share the Purpose and Objectives of the business and how their roles contribute.

• Discuss how they can help improve the workplace.

  • What are your expectations of them?

  • What are their expectations of you?

• Encourage opinions and feedback

• Invite input of ways to create a sense of belonging within the team.

Step 5. Recognise the good work and changes in the team

• Reward good behaviours.

• When an employee reports and incident or near miss, thank them and ensure that there is no blame attributed to it, but the focus is on whether the person is ok, and how the business can learn from it and ensure that there is no recurrence.

• Encourage innovation and ideas to make improvements to the way things are done.

• Use Team meetings for collaborative improvement sessions.

Step 6. Review the situation after 3 months. It might not happen overnight, but there will be signs of improvement on which to build.

Changing your culture isn’t easy, but the results to your business performance and your staff wellbeing are massive.