At first glance, you might expect company culture to take a downward spiral after covid. The world-wide shift for many companies to remote work, decreased onsite interactions, and uncertainty threatened to tear apart the invisible glue that holds companies together.
You might be surprised to learn that the average culture rating across companies actually rose between March and April 2020, according to research conducted by Glassdoor. During this time, employees gave their leaders higher marks in terms of honest communication during the first six months of the pandemic compared to the previous year.
While not all companies scored well in the ratings, you can glean a lot from the companies who scored high. Their focus areas included:
1. Communication – Leaders that were transparent and communicated the strategy, saw increased value scores.
2. Team-Centered Health and Wellness – Leaders that implemented policies that helped their employees balance work-family responsibilities, provided mental health resources, and addressed physical health and safety were rated higher.
3. Agility – Company leaders that experimented with new ways of working, flexibility of processes, execution of their strategies, received higher ratings.
Culture can be a defining factor in your company’s success or failure. With over 30 years of consulting and mentoring company leaders in developing Cultures of Distinction, we’ve discovered that if company culture is unclear, existing employees and new hires will determine it. That’s quite a hit-or-miss tactic especially when navigating something like a pandemic. Not defining your company culture will cause a rotating door of new hires eating into your profitability.
As a leader, how could you intentionally improve your company culture in the areas of communication, employee health and wellness, and agility?
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