How to Make Intentional Culture Shifts So Your Team Thrives

Creating a positive corporate culture is important for productivity, employee engagement, and retention, among other factors.?

Research from Glassdoor shows that employees value company culture above work-life balance, career opportunities, and compensation.?

However, creating a positive corporate culture is easier said than done.?

In today’s Leadership Lab, learn the importance of a positive workplace culture, as well as some steps leaders can take to improve it.?

What Do Employees Want From Their Workplace Culture?

According to research from MIT Sloan, the top factors of organizational culture that matter most to employees include:?

1. Employees feel respected
2. Leadership is supportive?
3. Leaders’ actions and behaviors reflect the organization’s core values
4. Managers don't engage in toxic?behaviors
5. Ethical behavior is demonstrated and encouraged?
6. The organization provides good benefits?
7. Employees are happy with the amenities and perks?
8. There are ample learning and development opportunities?
9. Employees have positive perceptions of their job security
10. The frequency and quality of reorganizations?

If you’re hoping to improve your workplace culture, it’s a good idea to begin by evaluating whether these factors are demonstrated by your organization.?

Read the article here: 10 Things Your Corporate Culture Needs to Get Right

Employees Want Flexibility

According to WFH Research, a project led by Stanford’s Nick Bloom and several other prominent researchers, approximately 83% of employees want to work at least one day at home per week.?

However, of workers who can work from home, approximately 36% still work in-office full-time.?

Assuming all employees who want to work in the office full-time are doing so, that still leaves approximately 19% of workers who would rather work in a hybrid or remote capacity.?

Optimizing Culture for Hybrid Work

Hybrid work combines in-person and remote work. Some companies allow employees to choose which days they want to work remotely while others create a schedule that employees must follow.

With remote work, employers focus more on how to improve communication and provide support for one type of employee. However, with a hybrid culture, employers need to better understand how to balance remote and in-office work.

Traditional in-office management techniques won’t work the same with a hybrid culture, and it takes a new way of thinking. Additional challenges include:

• Difficulty communicating: Communication can pose a significant challenge for hybrid workers, especially when some people are in the office and others are remote. Combining virtual technology with in-person interaction can easily lead to communication roadblocks.
• Loss of team coordination: In a hybrid environment, “faultlines” can easily emerge between in-person and remote employees. The additional effort required to coordinate with remote team members can easily result in them being left out of day-to-day decisions.
• Diminished team connection: When teams aren’t physically in the same location, it can be hard for them to bond and work together. In addition, employees often enjoy having office friends to talk to during lunch or on breaks, and a hybrid culture can make that more difficult.

Despite the associated challenges, hybrid work can be incredibly effective.?

Here are six tips to help improve your hybrid culture:?

1. Retain the social element: Facilitate opportunities for employees to connect and strengthen relationships.
2. Encourage cross-functional collaboration and cooperation: Actively encourage interdepartmental collaboration when possible to continue bringing your team together.
3. Share values: Ensure your employees know the company values and understand how their work contributes to overarching organizational goals.
4. Encourage clear communication boundaries: Help employees establish boundaries that help them maintain a positive work-life balance.
5. Provide tools for employees to succeed: Select the minimum number of digital tools to help your team thrive so they’re equipped with everything they need without getting overwhelmed.
6. Strive for continuous improvement: Regularly request employee feedback and continuously strive to optimize your workplace culture for a hybrid environment.

Read more: 6 Steps to Create a Thriving Hybrid Culture

Hybrid Culture and Implicit Beliefs

If your company has shifted from in-person to a work-from-home (WFH) or hybrid environment, it’ll be tricky for you to adapt your culture accordingly.

When your team operates in person, culture is often shaped by many implicit beliefs that, while not articulated, are assumed based on face-to-face interactions. In hybrid or WFH environments, however, communication channels change and it might be harder to continue many of these implicit behaviors virtually.

To account for this, Gartner recommends that leaders do the following:

• Identify implicit beliefs: Examine your team’s beliefs and behaviors, and identify those beliefs that haven’t been explicitly spoken, but have existed nonetheless.
• Illuminate these beliefs: Ensure that implicit beliefs become explicit by shining a light on them.
• Reshape them: Determine whether these beliefs are able to transfer to a hybrid or remote environment—or whether they should be at all—and what has to happen in order for that to be accomplished.

Many components of workplace culture were designed with in-person interactions in mind. For hybrid and WFH companies, these components must be challenged and reshaped to fit the WFH landscape.

The Importance of Providing Easy Channels for Feedback

Since your employees are instrumental in the implementation of your organizational culture, it’s important to provide easy ways for them to offer feedback. Listening to your team’s concerns is instrumental to retaining your corporate culture, particularly in times of organizational change.

While there are several ways to give and receive feedback, one method that’s excellent for a two-way conversation is the Situational-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model. This framework consists of three components:

• Situation: The context of the issue. What were the circumstances that led to the behavior being addressed?
• Behavior: The specific behavior that you’d like to discuss. What action was taken that resulted in the need for feedback?
• Impact: How this behavior has impacted you. How did it make you feel?

In our team feedback experience, researcher and Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino leads your team in guided discussions on how to master this framework in your organization.

You’ll gain confidence in effectively managing difficult conversations by understanding the significance of providing direct and constructive feedback, while also demonstrating empathy and clarity.

Optimizing Meetings: The Latest From HBR

Harvard Business Review (HBR) has recently published two articles pertaining to meeting management.?

Whether your team operates virtually or in person, it’s important for meetings to be purposeful and productive. You don’t want frustration to build up because your team feels that meetings only distract them from work without adding anything meaningful.?

In hybrid and remote cultures, it’s particularly important to optimize meetings, since face-to-face interactions occur significantly less frequently.?

Article #1: Optimizing Your One-on-Ones

According to HBR, one-on-ones can be incredibly effective at helping employees feel valued and productive.?

However, this requires intentionality.?

The article lists five signs that your one-on-ones aren’t as effective as they should be:?

1. You don’t want to attend the meeting: As your schedule fills up, one-on-ones might be among the first meetings to get cut. While this is fine occasionally, it shouldn’t be a regular occurrence.?
2. Your meeting always goes over time: According to the article, 30-60 minutes is a good time for a one-on-one. If it goes longer, you’re probably providing too much detail or getting sidetracked.?
3. You can’t fill the time: If your meetings are routinely short with very little to discuss, it could be a sign that your report isn’t comfortable discussing their challenges or needs with you.?
4. You end every meeting feeling discouraged: If your report vents during the entire one-on-one, you’re not optimizing the time effectively.?
5. You or your report are on a second screen: If the meeting’s participants aren’t paying attention, the meeting isn’t likely to be productive.?

The good news is that there are steps you can take to improve your weekly conversations with your reports.?

Here’s a brief overview of what HBR suggests for optimizing your one-on-ones:?

• If you don’t see the value in the meeting, make sure to prepare effectively ahead of time.
• If your meeting regularly goes over, assess which topics would be better in a more formal meeting and whether anything could be discussed via email or Slack.?
• If your meetings are regularly short, consider asking deeper questions to prompt a more in-depth discussion.?
• If your one-on-ones emotionally drain you, identify and set emotional boundaries. For example, give your report a set time to vent before progressing to other topics.
• If you get distracted, be intentional about practicing active listening. If your report is getting distracted, ask if it would be helpful to return to the conversation at a later point.?

It’s important to remember to always strive to improve your team’s psychological safety, so avoid invalidating them or responding passive-aggressively. Be direct, but also respectful.?

Read the whole article: 5 Signs Your One-on-Ones Aren’t Working

Article #2: Optimizing Your Team Meetings?

Another recent HBR article provides tips for encouraging participation in team meetings.?

Especially in virtual meetings, it’s easy for team members to avoid participating in meetings since there’s less inherent accountability.?

If you feel that your team isn’t participating, simply saying “Hey team, I need you to be more active in meetings” isn’t likely to make a difference.?

Here are three ways to encourage more participation in meetings:?

• Conduct one-on-ones with disengaged employees: If you notice specific employees struggle to participate, conduct individual meetings with them. Recognize their unique contributions and then ask open-ended questions about how they feel about team meetings. Invite them to engage more regularly and express that their opinion is important.?
• Show your team they’re valued: Show your team members recognition and appreciation. Actively listen, demonstrate empathy, thank your team members for their participation, and invite participation.?
• Improve psychological safety: If team members don’t feel safe expressing their opinions, they aren’t likely to. Take note of your (and others') responses to participation. If someone shares an idea, how receptive is your team? Does the idea get shot down??

To create a strong workplace culture, it’s important to ensure that your meetings are effective, productive, and valuable for all participants.?

Read the whole article: Your Team Members Aren’t Participating in Meetings. Here’s What to Do.

Don’t Miss Out on Our Next Event!

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, how can employers attract, retain, and engage top talent??

This Friday, join three prominent thought leaders in our upcoming Leadership Lab event: Navigating Workplace Evolution: Creating a Culture that Works for Your Company

In this event, we’ll be joined by the following visionaries:?

• HubSpot’s CEO: Yamini Rangan
• ServiceNow’s Chief People Officer: Jacqui Canney
• Stanford University Professor: Nick Bloom

You’ll take away several insights pertaining to strategic talent engagement and retention in the age of AI, as well as talent trends, leadership in a remote workforce, and the future of HR technology.?

This event will take place this Friday, June 7th at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET.

Click here to register!