Global Company Culture Day

What is company culture, and why should you care??

At Aligned at Work?, we believe that forward-thinking leaders of organizations can create workplaces where the humans actually WANT to work.?

Most online sources agree that company culture includes the beliefs, values, practices, and behaviors of the leaders and folks who work there. We used to talk about organizational climate, which was what it felt like to work for a company or leader.?

You’ll notice that we keep talking about leaders. We believe that leaders set the tone and the practices at work. They set the standards of which behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not. Team members also set norms and standards, but the leader “signs off” either overtly by endorsing or denouncing behaviors, or covertly by doing or saying nothing. We find that the old adage that “people leave leaders, not organizations” is still true in many cases. And turnover is costly!?

So how can an organization understand what its culture is? Here’s the EXPLORE process we use with our clients at Aligned at Work?.?

We start with an Executive Strategy Session for the company culture decision-makers.?

• Executives define what their desired company culture looks and feels like.
• They explore what they do and don’t like about their current culture.
• They define what it’s costing them to stay where they are.?
• They set the vision for moving forward to a stronger culture that attracts their ideal team members.

We survey company employees at all levels for their opinions on culture and current practices.

• Some clients already use an employee engagement survey, or a Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Belonging survey, and we use their results.
• Other clients work with us to define what to measure and we create or identify a survey.?

We do Stakeholder Interviews and Focus Groups.

• Company leaders identify who we should talk to one-on-one for deeper information on culture.
• Stakeholder interviews take place with folks at various levels and from all parts of the organization.?
• After the survey results are in, Focus Groups can be used to dig deeper into findings.?

We look at metrics and how performance is measured.?

• What gets measured gets done, and metrics can make or break a culture.?
• Are metrics used to punish and reward folks? Is there fear or pain connected to them??
• Do your metrics reward team performance or individual performance? Either can set a tone for culture that you may be unaware of.?

What kind of training or team member and leader development do you do??

• Learning and development opportunities can be used as reward or punishment.?
• At the least, they set a common language for how people within the company talk about it and deal with issues.?
• At best, learning and development that is fully supported from the CEO throughout the company, changes and shifts the culture positively.?

What are the company’s communication norms??

• How often are people communicated with, and under what circumstances??
• Are messages positive, crisis-oriented, people-focused, profit-focused, negative in nature? What does your communication say about how you want people to feel and what you want them to know??

We compile all the data, quantitative and qualitative, and build a report that identifies the gaps, your strengths, any easy things that you can do yourself, and areas where we feel there are actions to be taken. We identify your next steps, and your budget for getting the work done. We co-create the outcomes with you.?

Culture shifting takes time and is best done through decisive and steady steps forward. It REQUIRES support from the CEO throughout the organization. It is not a flawlessly smooth process. But things do get better, and we measure progress along the way. We support you in a number of ways – facilitation of critical meetings, training for your leaders and teams, executive and leadership coaching, staff augmentation, and more.

Call us at 602-888-0975 or email [email protected].?

Laurie D Battaglia, CEO, Aligned at Work?

Laurie Battaglia and the team at Aligned at Work? work with leaders to create workplaces of the future. They bring great leadership together with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and meet rapidly changing needs to today’s and tomorrow’s workforce. Aligned at Work ? specializes in Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Belonging Consulting and Training, Aligning Leadership Teams, Strategy Retreats, Aligned Leader? Training, Executive Coaching, Team Coaching, and Career Coaching.

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