Culture is it worth the Investment?
Frequently executives view culture or employee engagement as something soft and fluffy without a measurable impact on the bottom line. Investment in culture is not something that will yield instant gratification, but its key to success or failure of all other change initiatives that the company may undertake. Last night I had dinner with a Duke classmate of mine, she is highly driven type A personality, who works as marketing director for one of the largest Pharma companies in the world. She said "Karina, I'm done. I no longer care. My boss does not appreciate anything I do, no matter how hard I work, and when she likes my work she just takes the credit for herself". Sounds familiar? I remember when my friend joined the company 18 months ago; she was excited to make a difference in the world. She wanted to positively contribute and affect the bottom line. She was psyched. So what happened? How did she become so disengaged? Was it an uninspiring leader, a demotivating environment? A job that did not fulfill her? Unfortunately, this is all too common. More than 70% of workers are disengaged. These uninspired employees are just clocking time and coasting. According to a Gallup poll, actively disengaged employees cause U.S. companies between $450 – $550 billion in lost productivity per year. In today's fast-moving ever-changing marketplace all sectors and industries are feeling pressure from their competition. Companies start up every day across the globe. These startups don't have the same baggage, politics, and bureaucracy to weigh them down. They can be agile, flexible, creative and fast. Every day they learn from their failures and successes and they adjust at the speed of light. Now sure they don't have the resources and the brand recognition that their competitors do, but they are hungry, they are motivated and they want to succeed. Meanwhile, their competitors are slow to change with 50% of employees doing the status quo and another 18% are actively disengaged. Investing in culture change and employee engagement is more than a nice to have. Annually US companies spend $720 million on employee engagement, but they are not getting the results that they want. In fact, 85% of CEO's feel that their culture is not where it needs to be. Why? There are many factors that play into this. One of the reasons is the lack of focus on the root cause. It is important to understand what the problem is before jumping into the solution mode. Here are some things you can try for culture change to be successful. Ask the right questions. Understand what is the problem before fixing it. Get executive sponsorship. If people at the top don't care people at the bottom won't care either. Inspire people to change from the bottom up. It is not enough for leaders to say that certain behaviors are important, they actually have to model the right behaviors. This way employees know that leaders mean what they say. Find your champions and let them shine. Everyone can own culture change. Empower people to get involved. Leaders focus on culture. Connect with your people. Model the right behaviors. Listen and show that they have been heard. Empower. Empower. Empower. Recognize and Reward Right behaviors.
Karina Cohen
#Culture Change #empower #womenleaders #change #employeeengagement #engagement