Workplace culture continues to evolve as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. If you’ve tried to recruit someone into your business over the past several months, you know how difficult it is to find qualified talent. If you’ve tried to recruit someone into your business over the past several months, you know how difficult it is to find qualified talent. While it’s easy to blame the pandemic for this disruption to the marketplace, this is likely a problem that will continue for at least the next decade.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are around 10 million positions currently open. At the same time, the Department of Labor reported there are 8.7 million potential workers who have been looking for jobs and are counted among the unemployed. That means we have a significant shortfall of available people to fill our positions. Employers are also reporting that the candidates who are applying have a mismatch of skills and they’re not seeing people who are able to meet their specific needs. Baby Boomers are exiting the workforce to enter retirement and are further complicating the already difficult hiring landscape. For companies that are trying to scale and grow, this is a challenge. If these same companies are willing to take a critical look at their workplace cultures and make adjustments now, hiring and retention don’t have to be quite so troublesome.

So, what is workplace culture? 

That’s a good question, because many people think of workplace culture as being about the look and feel of their environment. But an organisation’s culture is the set of behavioural norms and unwritten rules that shape how employees interact and get work done. Workpalce culture is critical to creating the best experience for employees. Corporate culture is formed from a company’s daily practices, traditions, beliefs, and programmes. When your workplace culture isn’t being treated as a priority, it’s reflected in employee performance, productivity, and retention.

Take a look at your culture to determine what’s working and what’s not

We have a tendency to look at the monthly profit and loss and the economic indicators of success in our businesses, but we also need to focus on our employees and their experiences working for our companies.

If you care about your customers and their experience with your business, you should also be focused on your employee experience. Customer experience is a direct result of employee experience. A well-designed employee journey allows your staff to understand their value to your organisation. They feel well cared for and are set up for success at every key milestone during their employment. If your company hasn’t conducted a culture audit in the last two years, or you’ve never completed this exercise, it’s a good practice to learn what’s really going on in your employees’ journey. The culture audit can be as simple as asking employees what’s going well and what’s not, as well as learning more about the challenges they’re facing in their daily jobs. If you’re feeling really brave, you can also ask them questions about what would cause them to leave your organisation.

How much does workplace culture ‘cost’?

Culture often doesn’t have a line item in the corporate budget, but it should. Efforts to improve workplace culture almost always pay for themselves. When you have a workplace culture that supports employees, retention becomes easier, recruitment and re-recruitment costs go down, diversity happens more organically, and productivity goes up.

What about ROI?

Consider this data: Gallup estimates that a 100-person organisation that provides an average salary of $50,000 could have turnover and replacement costs of approximately $660,000 to $2.6 million per year. Even if your workplace culture efforts only save a few employees each year, it’s worth it. Companies that really excel in improving their cultures typically see significant returns in the first year.

The time is now!

It’s simple: Organisations must work hard against the forced entrepreneurship culture where smart, talented, and able employees say: I know I can do it better than you, so I will. Gather information on the employees who prefer to work virtually and understand what the non-negotiables are. Look for compromise. When employees recommit, continue to help them forge their career paths so they know you are committed to their futures, alongside that of the company. Let them know that they are valuable members of the workplace: an ever-increasing mosaic of new cultures, beliefs, and values.

A business is more likely to succeed when its culture is focused on the way employees view the company as a whole. If any of these stats felt like they hit close to home for your business, then it’s time to look into how to improve your company culture, such as how to improve internal communications, and better recognise achievements and engage with your employees.

It’s important to remember that there isn’t any “one-size-fits-all” type of culture that results in every single employee being happy and productive. But paying attention to what is achievable in regards to improving your culture will pay off majorly for your employees and your business. 

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

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Sources:

https://www.saplinghr.com/blog/7-inexpensive-ways-invest-company-culture
https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/news/215638/moving-to-culture-20.aspx
https://fortune.com/2021/10/13/respectits-transform-your-company-culture-workplace/