Do your workers manage demanding processes and work heads-down for hours on end? You may believe that you are successful without cultural alignment in your company. Yet people who do not connect with their team members or managers will not stretch themselves to accomplish your goals.

Their decisions will fit your job requirements narrowly in their own specific work areas and personal spheres of influence. A prime culture of fear will emerge as employees focus on meeting the letter of their job requirements. They will withdraw and not act in the best interests of your customer or your company. They will not risk tackling issues or working with other people who may choose another way to address a question.

Do you know if your employee behavior matches what you promise to your customers? Does your senior executive team’s behavior match the culture of your line workers in the field? Do you really know what the general culture of your employee population is like? Why is this focus on employee behavior and culture important?

Your employee culture includes:

• their behaviors in their daily interactions with each other and with your customers,
• the decisions they make about the appropriate conduct at work,
• their ability to collaborate and solve problems,
• their response to new challenges and obstacles to achieve your goals,
• their sense of purpose and loyalty to a common purpose or mission,
• the value and meaning they derive from the work they do.

A good place to start is to assess the employee culture that already exists in your organization. You need to know where you are before you can decide what steps to make for the future. Include every group or segment in your company from top management to the bottom line working employee. Modern internet based survey and analysis tools, along with experts on topics like employee culture, organization development, and employee satisfaction can produce insights quickly. Develop a complete understanding of the correlation between culture gaps and business performance.

In addition to expertise in conducting surveys and analyses, a consultant offers a very important factor: the objective third party. If your company has an unbalanced or even a toxic culture, then a neutral third party can more easily deliver the message. A consultant has no stake in the outcome, no internal agenda, and no political “baggage”. They also pose no direct threat to your senior executive team. Armed with this research, you will be ready to develop a roadmap for planning and managing the changes to your employee culture.

Be prepared for a long term process that can easily take up to two years to realize the full benefits of the changes. Your employees must see that the executive team are taking the process seriously, making changes personally, and acting as champions for the new culture. Then the chances for success are far greater.

Three other important tools can be very useful in affecting change in employee culture and their understanding of their role in accomplishing the mission of the company. They are: learning and development, reward and recognition, and performance management processes.

New hire training orients new employees with your company, your mission, and their new role. This can include employee promotions and internal transfers and other changes that move people into new positions. Orientation training can be very useful in sharing your purpose, objectives, culture, values, and tools to help employees be productive quickly. Embed messages and personality of your culture from the start of the employee’s engagement, and they will start in the right direction. The process may be extended to skills based and technical training programs to customer support and sales staff.

All of these training methods are good ways to communicate the mission and culture of your company clearly and boldly. Senior executives must regularly join training sessions to welcome new employees and to provide their own perspectives on the company and its purpose and culture. Computerized and self-paced course can include appropriate messages to provide the executive endorsement and personal connection with employees. People generally come to training courses with an open mind, expecting to learn something new. Take advantage of that
open minded attitude and fill them with positive reinforcement of your brand promise.

Recognize employees for outstanding achievements. Make sure those contributions are the ones you would like to be recognized. Stimulate more positive behaviors that are consistent with your brand. Consider a company that had a multi-tiered recognition system. Each quarter, awards for issued individuals for an action or support they have provided to others that was considered to be outstanding. They were nominated by other employees.

Quarterly award winners were selected by their senior manager. Winners with the most nominations in a year were eligible to participate in the annual Executive Club trip. Only the top five percent of the employee population were eligible. This program was very popular with some departments. The company spent thousands of dollars each quarter on cash and desktop mementos for this program.

The major opportunity to align this recognition system with their mission was unfortunately lost. Some managers even selected Executive Club winners by drawing numbers out of a hat! Those lottery winners enjoyed special recognition with the other “top” performers in the company regardless of their performance or behaviors. The company wasted a major opportunity to reinforce their value of performance driven results and the dedication to their mission.

A set of criteria as a filter on their nomination forms, and in their selection process, could have easily made a huge impact on their employee culture. Imagine if employees constantly recognized each other for actual performance, behaviors and outcomes to exemplify the mission.

Award winners would be positive ambassadors to communicate the desired aspects of change far more effectively than individual managers would. Do you recognize employees through awards and exclusive trips? How do you select winners, and what messages do you deliver to employees through that process?

Salary and bonus payments are another important form of reward and recognition. This is the “putting your money where your mouth is” statement to your employees. Many companies tie salary planning and bonus payments to the employee’s performance, in addition to the company’s performance. For example, let us say your company stresses teamwork and working together as a core value and aspect of your culture. Then you should reward employees who demonstrate high performance by showing that team spirit.

Make this an effective tool in influencing employee behavior and aligning performance with your mission. Ensure that performance objectives, expected outcomes, measurement criteria, appraisal reviews, and the recognized behaviors are all part of an employee performance management process. Align that process with your mission, and desired employee culture. Getting your employees aligned with your mission will empower them. They will make continuous improvements as they strive to deliver that unique and best-in-class customer experience.


Patrick Smyth is a leadership navigator and advisor to leaders of high growth and emerging businesses. He creates compelling visions and comprehensive strategic plans, and coaches on effective leadership and management practices. He is a recognized speaker, trainer, coach, and international business strategist and author of the book Elephant Walk: Balancing Business Performance and Brand Strategy for the Long Haul.
http://www.innovationhabitude.com