The CEO plays a significant role in setting the tone of a business and promoting specific values among the workforce. Many articles have been written about how important "company culture" is to success.
However, can the word "culture" itself be misleading to employees? Writing for Forbes, Alastair Dryburgh says that executives need to avoid using tired phrases and be more specific in addressing a business' everyday environment.
Dryburgh instead says that CEOs should focus on changing "habits and beliefs" within the company. This approach forces organizations to think more critically about what they need to change. For example, focusing too much on the short term instead of the big picture and neglecting customer input are bad habits, and improving them requires new behavior. When companies think about their "culture" that way, it becomes something they can take action to fix rather than a vague concept.
"We could spend weeks debating what 'culture' really is or how you change it, but we know perfectly well what a habit or belief looks like," Dryburgh writes. "And we know how to change them. Once we start looking for habits and beliefs we can break the task down into bits."
He implies there are both internal and external effects of a good "culture." Whatever word your company uses to describe its internal environment, sticking to a strong code of beliefs and behavior keeps workers loyal and happy while also sending a positive message to customers and competitors.
As Eric Siu recently noted in a piece for Entrepreneur, job turnover rises for companies without a strong level of employee engagement. When workers feel better about their jobs, they become more passionate and vocal in the company's favor.
A recruitment consultant will help your company locate someone with an understanding of how to improve the mindset that makes up company "culture."
Finding people is easy, but finding the RIGHT people is not. YES Partners helps companies FIND the right people – for all company functions, across many industries and globally.
