How would you describe your Company or Team Culture?

This is a question I ask many leaders with whom I work. When I then follow-up with, “Is this your desired culture?”, the answer is often, “not exactly”.

I’ve also heard from many of my HR colleagues that improving company culture is a huge focus for 2024, and a challenge for them. The reality is, they cannot do it alone. Many companies aren’t even sure that company culture should be an HR initiative.

Creating a specific culture takes focus and intention. It requires the involvement of many and…

• Identifying what your ideal company culture is and envisioning what that truly looks like and means to everyone within the organization.
• Recognizing how your mission and values align with and will inform your culture.
• Communicating your ideal company culture and gathering ideas and opinions from others on how to achieve the desired culture.
• Understanding how your ideal culture will help you to achieve your ongoing goals.
• Creating regular feedback opportunities to measure the progress being made, and the impact of moving towards your desired culture is having on your people and your organization.

It’s not an easy task, but it is possible to achieve change.

Once identified, your intended culture and how you expect to achieve it needs to be regularly communicated. It needs to be part of the recruiting process and the onboarding process. It needs to be part of meetings – whether team meetings, cross-functional meetings, all-staff meetings… Similar to your values, you can use your ideal company culture as an accountability tool. If someone isn’t modeling the desired behaviors needed to create the culture, you can provide feedback around that.

What else has helped you to create the desired team or organizational culture you have planned for? What gets in your way?

Curious to learn more about driving a healthy organizational culture and engaging your employees? Let’s  connect.

“The culture of a company is the sum of the behaviors of all its people.” – Michael Kouly