When There’s Staff Turnover, Think Culture!

In its line of work, Rockstone deals with huge organisations. Take the Met (London Metropolitan Police), for instance. It is mega! How, then, does it grow an inclusive culture, given its unwieldy size? This is the question I’ve recently had to deal with.

It takes audacious leadership to handle the multifaceted governance, departments and operations of such an organisation. Of the manifold services involved, Rockstone handles three (3) functions. One on consultancy and governance, the second on staff training and the last on research.

As you can imagine, keeping the leadership’s feet to the fire of accountability is not easy. Large organisations like the Met have a fairly high turnaround of officers and staff due to promotion, retirement, maternity/paternity leave, secondment, sickness, natural attrition, etc. This raises the question: given its inextricable relationship with the public, how does the organisation grow trust and confidence, when issues that are close to the public’s heart are either deferred, constantly rebooted, or given variable attention, depending on who the new incumbent is (local or political) – the uncertainty of which feeds into an arbitrary, mechanical and sometimes cynical workforce??

In other words, how does an organisation maintain its inclusive vision given the dynamic flux of turnover in the workforce?

The heart of any beginning to an answer is this: culture is a living organism. I want to begin here!?

Yes, culture is living and always evolving. It is never stagnant. So, here’s what you do:

???? Keep core values as the anchor – values such as diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

???? Invest in a transparent and welcoming onboarding process. Newbies always come with their own experience of company culture. Incorporate cultural fit assessments in the hiring process – values alignment and DEIB perspective. Vet the bad and welcome the new.?

???? Mentor the newbies. Pair them up with a colleague who has a positive work ethic.

???? Invest in leadership development and succession planning. Leaders lead leaders!

???? Have a constant flow of positive messaging from SLT. A living example sets and resets the tone, ensuring that values are not just words but actions.

???? Keep communications channels flowing. Use them to explain changes, address concerns, and gather feedback from employees at all levels.

???? Conduct regular pulse surveys and stay interviews. You need to be in touch with employee sentiment and identify areas for improvement before issues escalate and lead to departures.

???? Initiate a cultural ambassador programme. This overlaps and can be combined with a similar scheme for DEIB ambassadors. They will help to lead cultural audits and feedback loops. Make sure you include positive inducements and rewards as this task often goes thankless. Celebrate wins and milestones!

Remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast. It also swallows up policy. It’s people that make strategy and policies work. Bad culture; choked-up strategy and policy. Set the culture right and your customers, clients and consumers won’t notice the difference when staff come and go.?

So, where’s your audacious leadership? You can take us on to help you engender a dynamic, inclusive culture.

To know more, go to Rockstone Consultancy.