Boosting your company culture

Did Covid-19 put your company culture on hold? Do you fear employee engagement will suffer when they return to the office?

3 simple steps that work

Companies at large have been confronted with unparalled challenges in these times of confinement, lockdown and vanishing revenues. For many employees, working from home has become a difficult balancing act of sharing a new work environment with the family. In spite of a surge in technological support and widespread use of video conferencing tools, frustration and stress have been common outcomes. This situation may well become "the new normal" and with this the need to rethink how to balance life and work.

At the same time, a sense of common good and the need to connect to a higher purpose has made many of us thankful for what the luckiest are blessed with: caring colleagues, a loving family, a roof above our heads and food on the table. How can you as the leader of the company adapt to this new normal?

Here is my proposal to three simple steps to boost your company culture post Covid-19:

1. Back to basics: The company purpose

Most companies have a vision statement, and a majority of these are about creating value for their clients. But is this enough in today's environment? A highly regarded company like Accenture for example, states that their first core value is "Enabling clients to become high-performance businesses". Most of the messages on the page "About Accenture" talks about how they work, not why.

Another example is from L'Oréal, a world leader in beauty. Their ambition, according loreal.com, : "... for the coming years is to win over another one billion consumers around the world by creating the cosmetic products that meet the infinite diversity of their beauty needs and desires." That's very company centric, and "meeting beauty needs and desires" is still quite focused on what they do (beauty products), and not why they do it.

My proposal is therefore that businesses, big and small, should firstly ask themselves why they do what they do. Ask yourself these questions:

• What are the top services or products our company provides now?
• What are the results these help create for our clients?
• Why are these results important for our clients?
• Probe multiple times - Why is that? to find the ultimate Why statement (1)

Does this resonate with you and provide a reason for you to get out of bed in the morning?

1. Employee engagement

According to Gallup, just 34 percent of American workers are engaged by their jobs. Fifty-three percent say they're not engaged (although they might be satisfied) and 13 percent describe themselves as "actively disengaged" (2); this often contrasts sharply from the C-suite view, where leaders generally think they are doing a good job in engaging their teams. 

Employee engagement is a recent buzz word that was called employee motivation before. Although research has proven it difficult to measure any clear link with business results (3), most leaders agree that high employee engagement improves drive, proactivity, loyalty and "going the extra mile" among their teams.

What is the impact of the Covid-19 on the team engagement, and how do you boost it?

"Show that you care, your employees will care back"

Two clear trends emerge on how the employees experience lockdown and work from home ("WFH"): on one hand WFH materializes the work for the family members, especially the younger ones. Instead of seeing mummy and daddy disappearing the whole day to this mysterious place called "work", they can actually see them work at home. The way work is conducted, especially online meetings, also creates a more focused work style with less time spent on chit chat and coffee. The second trend is that many employees tend to work longer hours, with many interruptions from family members. This and the lack of interaction with colleagues creates a higher level of stress and fatigue.

When your team will resume work at your offices, I believe two things will have changed: Firstly, people at large are expecting more from society and organisations in the wake of Covid-19. They want to be able to care for their family, and they wish for more flexibility and understanding from their management to be able to do so. This means possibility to WFH when a child is sick, have flexible hours if a parent needs care, and the like.

They will also want more interaction with colleagues, having felt the strong need for this during the lockdown, without going back to endless and often useless meetings. A few simple steps can both boost morale and improve efficiency at work:

• Give parents the possibility to WHF one or two days a week
• Introduce flexitime for those that work in the office
• Ask employees for their opinion on how their work should be done: This is quite rare in most cultures, and still a very powerful tool to show respect for people. Unsurprisingly, employees are the ones best suited to make recommendations for improvement for the role they fill. Show that your care, your employees will care back.
• Discuss with HR if some employees can shift roles from time to time, creating both a higher variety in job function and a better understanding of the issues at stake for their colleagues. The first boosts motivation, the second fosters better collaboration.
• However, the most important impact on engagement comes from the top;

3. Leadership

Many executives make the same mistake: a good leader should be tough, or else she or he will become a pushover. The toughness scenario includes imposing opinions, being overcontrolling, saying no more often than yes, and only engaging in work related issues with the employees. Their personal life is their problem, some execs seem to think.

"A true leader is at the service of the employees, so they can do an amazing job"

Nothing could be further from the truth. Research has shown (4) that leaders that inspire their employees the most, are the ones who listen, who show genuine interest in their employees, and who do not put their own agenda first.

In order to listen, really listen, a leader needs to be able to focus. Focus can be trained, and the more you focus, the better you can understand and recall what your team is saying, your response is coherent and quick, and wise decisions are made clearly and quickly. In my experience, quick and sensible decisions are one of the key expectations of employees from their management.

?Showing genuine interest in your employees says: I am here for you, rather than just the other way around. A true leader is at the service of the employees, so they can be at their best and do an amazing job. This includes giving kudos for a job well done, the cheapest and least applied motivational tool there is. Another frequent misconception is that kindness equals softness. A team leader can be compassionate but still have a tough conversation with a team member. Giving feedback on things that need to improve or change is one of the key roles of the team leader. It can and should be done in a way that makes the employee grow, not slumber into a numb depressive state. That's showing kindness and compassion, very far from being soft.

Finally, a leader who puts his or her employees first is much more likely to motivate and inspire the troops. Selflessness requires self-confidence; and the knowledge that a success celebrated by the team, is also in part due to her or him, without having to claim it.

To summarize, if your company's purpose resonates with you, that you engage in caring, selfless and strong leadership, that you make sure your employees work in a way which is practical for both your company and their personal lives, both you and your teams will be smiling when its time to go to work.

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Arne Blom is a senior executive at a multinational company, a professional coach, and spends his free time coaching pro bono to make a positive impact at work. If you are interested, please write to [email protected]

(1) Simon Sinek: "Find your Why"; and "Identify your Why Worksheet", www.getsmartcenter.com

(2) Gallup, Inc. (2018). State of the American Workplace. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx

(3) William H. Macey and Benjamin Schneider: "The Meaning of Employee Engagement", Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1 (2008), 3–30. 

(4) Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter: 'The Mind of the Leader"