Creating An Effective Work Culture
By Jeff Brainard Vice President, Hospitality & Sales, Southern Management Companies | October 2024
As businesses and industries move further and further away from the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions, rule changes, and impact on workforce associated with the pandemic dissipate, the importance of workplace culture is reemerging in conversation.
Several have defined workplace culture as “The personality of an organization from the employee perspective.” Understanding how to build an effective culture is essential to organizational success and if we use this definition, ensuring that culture is aligned with employees as intended is critical to success in all business, but especially in hospitality.
Gallup breaks down five elements of organizational culture as: Leadership, Communication, Purpose, Recognition and Stories. Beehive states that there are six elements of work culture: Leadership, Purpose and Values, Employee empowerment, Inclusive well-being, Professional development & growth opportunities, and Communication. Even the Better Business Bureau has five key elements which are: Hire the right employees, Welcome employee input, Create a comfortable workspace, Make the company’s mission clear, and Allow employees to become acquainted.
While there are various opinions on the ways to define work culture, there is zero argument on the necessity of having a positive and strong one. But what is considered “good” or “great” or “bad” or “ineffective” as it relates to culture? This answer, to me, is straightforward and can be answered with two questions: “Are your employees happy?” and “Is your employee team effective?” If the answer to either question – or both – is no, then you have a poor or ineffective culture, period. And poor, ineffective work cultures lead to unproductive teams.
Culture is the great measuring stick between organizations across industries. Turnover, effectiveness, efficiency, competitive rank, etc. are all impacted, positively or negatively, by the culture of their organization.
In creating an effective work culture, I believe there are six critical elements: Vision, Credibility, Fairness, Purpose, Recognition, and Accountability. These elements are co-dependent and equally weighted, but they work in unison to define, grow, and adapt culture to ensure employee buy-in and alignment.
Vision
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. Establishing and communicating the vision is an essential first step to creating an effective work culture. What Jack doesn’t say is that the vision has to be clear and relatable to your employees. A vision should come from the CEO (or whoever is the leader of the organization) and sharing that vision should include why that vision is in the best interest of the company, employees, community, and customer base.
Understanding that employees are people that have an innate need for belonging requires articulation of vision that meets your team where they are, as you are asking your employees to work toward bringing that vision to life. To get employees to work effectively as a team, they need to understand where they are going, why they are going there, and how their efforts contribute to the achievement of the company’s vision. This requires vision to be much more than a statement, it is a company-wide commitment to work as a team to achieve this goal.
Some simplified vision statements include:
Disney - “To make people happy.”
Google - “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.”
Instagram - “Capture and share the world’s moments.”
Some more extensive statements include:
Amazon - “Our vision is to be the earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
Ben & Jerry’s - “Making the best ice cream in the nicest possible way.”
Zappos - “To provide the best customer service possible. Deliver “WOW” through service.”
All of these visions are unique and focused on employees, but vision statements are just the beginning. What does it mean to “make people happy” and how does that align employees behind your vision? Articulating that vision into actionable steps that can be taken by individual employees is the key to vision. This is where credibility joins the process.
Credibility
Webster’s defines credibility as “the quality or power of inspiring belief.” As outlined in vision, we must ensure as leaders that any vision shared with employees is aligned with the organization’s values, in the employee and customer’s interest, achievable, and ethical. A key element to credibility is communication as being believable is different from being believed. Credibility requires ownership of one’s own actions and having the strength of character to admit mistakes, ask for help, and to be open and direct with anyone organizationally.
This does not mean share everything with everyone as there are organizational levels within companies for a reason, however, whatever is shared needs to be honest, free from spin, and direct. Nothing loses an employee’s trust like blaming them for a leader’s mistake, and nothing gains a team members trust like watching their superior take ownership when they did something wrong. Building trust in communication validates vision.
Understanding and explaining that accomplishing the company’s vision is going to be difficult, but not impossible, must be the truth and followed-up with actions supportive of the vision. The days of “do as I say, not as I do” are long gone, and your team knows that. Credibility is not just direct communication, it is listening, adapting, leading by example, learning, and communicating. Credibility is trust and needs to be earned to be maintained.
Fairness
Fairness is not equity. As a component of culture, fairness needs to be the measuring stick of effective actions by employees. Equity may be a result of a strong and effective culture, but the foundational elements of culture first require fairness. Fairness vs. equity is a choice. Fairness means something is just or appropriate action is taken in a given situation, or in accordance with rules or standards. Webster’s defines equity as “justice according to a natural law or right.” Within a company, adherence to the rules, following processes, guidelines, etc. can literally be a life-or-death impacting decision.
In creating an effective work culture, fairness ensures equal treatment according to all workplace rules. As a culture changes, how those rules are established, how they are modified or enhanced, and even how they apply may evolve, but an effective culture requires that the rules that are adopted by the organization are consistently applied. There are countless examples of “rules for thee but not for me” that have destroyed companies or leaders They have ignored the rule of “fairness” and in doing so, lost credibility, damaged the vision of their organization.
Purpose
“Why am I here.” Age old question, right? Literally, why are you at your current job? What is your purpose in the company and how does that role impact the company’s vision and your own sense of purpose? Purpose is such a great word. Defined as “something set up as an object or end to be attained” it is the defining piece of the puzzle for many on why you wake up each day, get out of bed and go to work. Purpose is a cross-over element in culture. Purpose is deeply personal, but it is also deeply important to an organization.
Filling a need, producing a product, meeting financial targets, etc. are all goals set by companies daily. But why you are doing something is difference making. Belief in a vision, trust in your leader, and being treated fairly are all important, but a sense of accomplishment, contribution, belonging or even love, are all elements of purpose that drive you, and your employees, to be their best. If you love what you do, where you do it and feel a sense of purpose from the work, it makes going to work and meeting your KPIs more rewarding.
Recognition
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, “work is its own reward.” Marcus Samuelsson stated, “hard work IS its own reward.” And Fredrik Backman noted, “A job well done is a reward in its own right.” Wonderful quotes, iconic even – irrelevant to today’s workplace culture. Purpose is appropriate but beyond purpose is recognition. Recognition can fuel one’s spirit. For too many years, employees worked for organizations that believed the paycheck was recognition enough for hard work. That mentality did nothing to foster innovation, creativity, taking risks or going beyond and has been a challenge since before the industrial age.
Today’s workforce and culture expects acknowledgement when there are wins. This does not mean that recognition should be general or thrown about without purpose. As we’ve outlined, vision, credibility, fairness, and purpose all serve to engage employees. They set the tone for an organization’s goals and expectations. Recognition, when applied fairly, consistently, and most importantly, when deserved, is an essential piece of culture. Unlike some of the other elements, recognition does not have hard and fast rules and is highly personal.
Most companies have established recognition programs – employee or manager of the month, quarter, year, etc. Sales awards or performance-based awards are also commonplace. The key to all of them is that recognition should be earned. Culture is truly viewed from the employee perspective, and employees want recognition to mean something so that when it occurs, there is genuine appreciation from the employee’s perspective.
Recognition is likely the trickiest of the elements as it can and should be a combination of private and public acknowledgement, depending on the action being recognized. Consistent delivery of feedback, the honest and genuine thank you to individuals and teams, highlighting efforts outside of an established scope or guideline, all are recognition. Making recognition an expected part of culture, from all levels, is a consequential piece of culture. Peer to peer, leadership to line level, line level to leadership is all important. Having a culture that celebrates people doing their best creates energy and builds positive momentum and in turn, increases sales.
Accountability
Many do not think of accountability as a pillar of culture. A general perception is that accountability is a negative and requires HR and write-ups. In fact, accountability is a culture in itself and there have been hundreds of articles written on a culture of accountability. In the military, accountability isn’t a buzzword, it is a way of life. It is in business as well. We have all worked with people that did not “pull their weight” or been on teams with people just along for the ride. Nothing can derail a culture as fast as someone employees view as skating by or getting away with performing less. Teams collapse from the inside and so does culture.
Poor communication, inconsistent work ethic, quality issues, etc. all happen but how an organization responds – fairly, consistently, with purpose, aligned with vision and communicated clearly makes a difference. Accountability is the practice of being held to a certain standard of excellence. It means that the rules apply to all, but a strong culture also works to help those who slide off the path to help them reengage and step up to do their jobs effectively.
Too often, employees are allowed to fail because the culture does not support direct communication or effective corrective actions that could have modified behavior. Accountability relies on relationships and codependency. The dependency may be between individuals or between an employee and the company but ensuring that performance is consistent and contributes to achieving the vision is an elemental piece of culture.
More times than not, employees want greater accountability for themselves and peers. Accountability drives every element of culture and helps keep those elements structured.
Creating Culture
Having defined the key elements, combining them may seem like a daunting task but it does not have to be difficult. Unlike other corporate actions culture is organization-wide and requires on-going effort from every level. The order of the elements outlined is important. Not necessarily on their impact individually, but in creating a culture, or improving one, order matters. Each element is equally important but the co-dependency of each is unique, and each step requires time, testing, feedback, and adaptation before moving to the next.
When building an effective work culture, understanding the starting point is essential. There can be no progress unless you understand where you are to begin with. Training is the lifeblood of culture and understanding that culture is a commitment and not an initiative is vital. At Southern Management, our culture is built on a few simple principles and these elements add up to our vision and shared consciousness, which has evolved over time. The commitment to training, reinforcing values and challenging the status quo has contributed to a strong but consistently evolving culture. Understanding that the way we do things matters and that how we support each other in creating places where people want to live, work and play is our “why.”
When looking at all of the elements that make up culture, sharing the vision should be first and communicated consistently and regularly. Providing updates on the company’s progress is foundational so that every employee is aware of how they are contributing to the achievement of the organization’s vision. Aligning the team to buy-in to the vision allows an organization to move seamlessly towards credibility. This step in culture creation requires examination of how feedback is presented. Whether it is from interviews, a company survey, or other data collection method, understanding where trust is damaged or, at worst, broken, needs to be publicly acknowledged and addressed. This takes time, training, and potentially significant organizational change. But, without trust, there can be no credibility and having an effective culture requires honest feedback and partnership.
The easiest way to build trust and credibility is through fairness. Reviewing internal policies and procedures and make certain there is consistent and fair application of workplace rules. The largest challenges come from leaders who have real or perceived “favorites” which can damage trust and limit engagement. Acknowledging top performers, recognizing key contributions consistently is a good way to help break down some of those barriers but fair application is key. Identifying poor performers and working with them to improve or, at times, to move out of an organization is necessary so that the team is aware that accountability is, in fact, part of the culture.
Finally, highlighting purpose and communicating directly with employees about their motivations, desires, goals, and wants, along with a path for development, drives engagement and performance. Recognition and purpose, and even compensation, can only go so far. This is where culture really starts to turn positive. Aligning purpose with growth tied to vision is the goal. Engaged performers are looking to contribute in new ways and appreciate learning and sharing knowledge. Identify ways organizationally to share experiences and recognize talent and performance.
This all requires time and investment but an investment in culture creates significant savings organizationally through lower turnover, higher productivity, improved employee health and attendance. All of this leads to a and a truly better organization.
Creating an effective work culture, and then maintaining it, is a company’s largest contribution or organizational health and stability and will lead to market-leading results.
Mr. Brainard
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