How To Reduce Turnover & Rev Up Company Performance
Corporate culture is more than just an industry buzzword, according to People Keeper, Mark Holmes. Working with small business owners and corporate executives to improve management-employee situations in every work environment imaginable, Holmes knows first hand the problems that employers face when trying to keep current and hold on to better employees.
Holmes says that corporate culture must be healthy in order for new millennium businesses to thrive. "Keeping better performers means that your culture embraces the priorities and core values that make it the vigor and the allegiance of the people you intend to retain," says Holmes, a management specialist.
Managers shouldn't underestimate their influence on the work atmosphere, Holmes says. "Leaders shape the climate because their style, priorities and core values are inextricably woven into the work fabric," he says. Holmes addresses this contemporary business concern and more in his latest book, The People Keeper. Work climate is an important part of corporate culture, according to Holmes. "Management must take the time and initiative to look at their work climate from their employees' point of view and determine if it is supportive and stimulating," he says. "The best employees want to work in a positive, supportive environment where their talents can be fully developed, and where management is open to new ideas." The importance of a solid corporate culture hasn't gone unnoticed by Harvard Business School, whose study of corporate culture indicates that organizations with strong corporate cultures (those that are character-based and employee-centered) may outperform those with weak cultures by as much as 500 percent.
Shifting the emphasis from the company to the employee is the most critical part of improving and updating corporate culture, Holmes says. "Being company-centered instead of employee-centered is kind of like being product-focused instead of customer-focused."
But improvement can begin by simply changing the attitude of those in leadership positions. "The situation will start to get better as soon as management drops the attitude that employees are lucky to be working at their company, changing that attitude to reflect the fact that the company is lucky to have them working there," Holmes says.
Regularly and objectively monitoring the effectiveness of your people keeping efforts is another direct route to creating a positive corporate culture, according to Holmes. "This starts with finding out what needs to be changed," he says. "Management needs to ask a critical question of employees, 'What are we not doing now that we should do in order to keep you here?'" Employers who do not take the time to invest in corporate culture will regret their neglect in the future, Holmes says. "The people who walk out the door will be your best employees, and you'll end up retaining your average performers," he says. "That includes a loss of core competencies that comes with losing experienced employees. Just think of the ideas, experience, and expertise that is lost -- the impact is incalculable."
Updating corporate culture takes an ongoing effort on the part of management to be current with what employees need for challenge and fulfillment, according to Holmes. "It's got to be something you are very committed to, even if it's a little threatening to the way you've always managed people," he says.
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ARTICLE BY: Christine Ballew-Gonzales.