Hi and welcome to Be The Flagship with our podcast host Jeff Parsons.
This is where we tackle the day-to-day talent management challenges you face, particularly
in hospice and small healthcare organizations.
And now over to our host.
Take it away, Jeff.
Hello and welcome to Be The Flagship.
I'm your podcast host, Jeff Parsons.
And this episode, this week's episode continues our month-long discussion and focus on workplace
culture.
If you will recall, last week's episode was great and included a guest speaker, Heather
Thompson, BP of Hospice down in Texas, talking about workplace culture and specifically
the power of recognition in building that great place to work.
This week, we're going to back up a step and we're going to look at workplace culture
a little more strategically and talk about the various components of workplace culture.
And I've narrowed those down to the 10 components of workplace culture.
So let's take a quick break and we'll come back and get started.
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Extension 101.
Okay, we're back and before we get back to our topic for today, the 10 components of
workplace culture, I have some exciting news for the listeners.
We're actually launching two new podcasts over the next few weeks.
One is for those who are in career transition and the other is for those who would like
to beef up in their leadership skills.
And so, you'll hear more about these two new podcasts in the next couple of weeks.
As I'm sure you're aware, you know, workplace culture is complex.
It's multifaceted and it encompasses various pieces or components.
And these components collectively shape the environment, the values, the behaviors, and
the attitudes within your organization.
And some of the key components of workplace culture include the following.
Again, I've categorized those into 10.
So number one is values and beliefs.
The core principles and philosophies that guide decision making and behavior within
your organization.
These include shared beliefs about ethics, integrity, and what is important to the organization.
Now I've never stepped into an organization, I don't think, I can't recall one at least,
where the organization did not have their, they may call them a lot of things, you know,
core values, values, principles.
You know, you may see a lot of different words for it, but it's those core values really
within the organization.
But you'll see them on a plaque or framed and hung on the wall, which is great.
I mean, it keeps it in front of people and you know, the more places you can post those
things the better off you are.
But they're meaningless if you don't, if they're not demonstrated in work on a daily basis.
So it's one thing, it's sort of like do as I say and not as I do.
So yeah, I'm going to post these things here are our values, but then the key leaders within
your organization, well, not just your key leaders, any of the leaders within your organization,
throw those values that plaque right out the window when they demonstrate a lack of care
for their employees, a lack of integrity, a lack of honesty, all those types of things
destroy whatever platitudes you have framed very nicely in placed in your conference room.
Right?
So it's more than a plaque is more than framed wall art in your conference room.
These are core principles and philosophies that God should guide every decision you make
should guide your behaviors, how you treat each other, how the team behaves, how the
team works cross functionally with other teams.
So your values and beliefs I have ranked really is number one, because without those, you
don't have that golden thread, if you will, throughout your organization that connects
behaviors and decisions and communication and all those other key factors within culture.
So the number one is your values and your beliefs.
I will make a strong statement right now.
I won't be the first and probably won't be the last, but if you're not willing to live
by those values, if you're not willing to demonstrate in a positive way, those values
that you have on the wall, then do me a favor, toss that plaque into the garbage can because
it is worthless.
And in fact, it does more harm than good because the employees look at it saying, yeah, that
means a whole lot, right?
So it creates this sense of dishonesty within your organization.
If you say this is what we live by, but you don't demonstrate it.
Okay.
So values and beliefs, number one, number two, your vision and mission.
And oftentimes organizations get the two confused.
That your mission is what you're going to do every day.
This is our mission.
This is our purpose for existence.
And your vision is where you'd like to be in the future.
This is where we're heading.
And if we achieve our mission, then eventually we will reach our vision.
And so the vision and mission, these are the organization's long-term goals and your purpose
again for being there.
A clear vision and mission statement provide direction and alignment for employees driving
collective efforts toward a common objective.
I've seen a lot of organizations where they include a mission statement on the back of
a business card.
And that's impressive.
You get a business card and it has their mission on the back, but it's sort of like that plaque
on the wall again with the key values.
But that employee does not embody that mission statement and that vision statement.
And if they don't understand their role within your organization and achieving your mission
and eventually your vision, then it's useless.
I've been in organizations where the employees could recite it, word for word, they could
recite the mission.
That's a little stronger because they're beginning to absorb what that mission is and their role
in the mission.
But before you place your mission statement on the back of a business card, make sure
the carrier of that business card understands their role within your organization and helping
you accomplish that mission is so important.
Because they may be asked at some point, so okay, so this is your mission statement.
So what does this mean?
And that employee at that point in time should be able to talk through what it means from
their perspective, from their individual role within the organization, not recite something
that's been told to them by the CEO or the HR person, that sort of thing.
So again, vision and mission, that's the second component of workplace culture.
The third component is leadership style.
The leadership approach and behaviors exhibited by your leaders within your organization,
that's really truly important.
I mean, I hear all the time, we lead by example.
Okay, what kind of example?
Do you lead by a positive example?
You lead by a bad example.
You know, you claim you have these values, you claim you have this mission statement,
but yet you go around, you know, screaming at people, treating people badly, treating
people in a vindictive, vengeful manner.
And I'm a firm believer that you're always communicating something even when you're saying
nothing.
So when you behave that way, what are you communicating to the rest of your organization
is communicating no matter what we say on the wall, this is the way we really behave
and this is how we really feel about people and one another.
And so leadership styles, and oftentimes you may have a top leader, a CEO, you know, who
is a very effective leader.
I mean, they understand good leadership and they model in a positive way your values and
your mission and all those things, but they don't hold other leaders within their organization
accountable for doing the same thing, right?
And so it's very important to hold people to account for their behaviors.
You know, they may be a stellar performer in terms of getting financial results, getting
reports on time, getting those types of things, but if they use a scorched earth policy to
do it, then they've done more damage than they have good, right?
To your culture.
And so hold your leaders accountable if you're the top leader within that organization.
Now oftentimes a toxic environment, it's a product of your senior leader within your
organization.
I'm sorry for the strong statement, but it's a fact, right?
Because you know, hold leaders accountable or number two, you're part of the problem
in terms of behavior.
And people see that and they make decisions based on what they see, not what you say.
Okay.
So anyway, you know, I know it sounds like I'm on a soap box today, but just felt like
needed to get that aired.
The fourth component of workplace culture is communication.
And that what I mean by communication, the exchange of information, ideas, feedback within
your organization.
So effective communication promotes transparency within your organization.
It promotes a sense of collaboration within your organization and trust among employees
and teams.
When they feel like the leaders within the organization hold their cards close to their
chest, in other words, they're not very open in their communication.
They don't share much about themselves.
You know, it's hard to develop that level of mutual trust that's needed.
So you know, the more transparent you are with communication, being open and honest
with your communication, providing constructive feedback in terms of, you know, instead of
destructive feedback, right?
I see some leaders who've read the first half of the Marine handbook, but they forgot to
read the last half, right?
The first half you tear the Marine recruit down and make them feel like they're lower
than low.
And then you build them back up.
Well, some leaders have read the first part and they haven't read the second part.
You know, they don't know how or they're not willing or they don't care on how to pick
that person up and build them up and build their level of self-confidence and self-esteem
within the organization.
So communication is key.
Having good communication processes, making sure that your employees understand what those
processes are as opposed to assuming they understand.
Number five, employee engagement.
That's another HR buzzword over the last couple of years, but it's true.
How engaged I am within that organization is an indicator of how committed and how much
I believe that I have a real role to play in the success of the organization and that
the organization cares about my success.
So when we speak of employee engagement, we're speaking of the level of commitment, motivation
and satisfaction among employees.
So if you have a positive workplace culture, it fosters high levels of engagement and it
does so by recognizing and valuing employees' contributions, providing opportunities for
growth and development and it promotes work-life balance.
And so again, going back to the episode last week with Heather, she's really focused on
recognition and celebration of successes and those types of things.
Why?
Well, for one reason, she believes in it, which is a great thing, but she also understands
that an appreciated workforce and appreciated team will work harder and be more engaged
in trying to achieve the goals of the organization.
So employee engagement obviously is very important.
And so that's the fifth component of workplace culture.
So let's take another break.
We'll come back and we'll wrap up the last five components of workplace culture.
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All right, we're back, we're back.
So where were we?
We left off with the fifth component of workplace culture, employee engagement.
So just to refresh your memory, before the break, the first component would be your values
and your beliefs.
The second component is your vision and your mission.
The third component is your leadership style.
And I'm talking about your organizational leadership style, which is a collection of
your corporate or your organization style is basically a reflection of your individual
leadership styles and what the senior leader is willing to accept.
The fourth component was communication.
And the fifth component was employee engagement.
So the sixth component, diversity and inclusion.
And this is the extent to which differences in backgrounds, perspectives and experiences
are respected and valued within the organization.
Cultivating a diverse and inclusive culture enhances the creativity within the organization,
the level of innovation and your degree of organizational resilience.
And so that's, you know, it's very important to make sure that you're inclusive in your
hiring practices, your promotion practices, but you hold people to standards as well,
you know, performance standards.
And some organizations tend to hide behind DEI initiatives as opposed to using it as
a tool of strength for the organization.
So be aware of that.
You know, at the end of the day, the organization has a mission in the organization, in the
community and your job is to achieve that mission.
And you need the resource, collective resources within your organization to be able to achieve
this.
And so treating everyone the same, regardless of race, color, religion, all those protected
classes is very important.
So that's diversity and inclusion.
Number seven, the work environment.
This is the physical, emotional and social aspects of the workplace.
A supportive and inclusive work environment promotes well-being, productivity and collaboration
among your employees.
But again, you know, so the work environment itself, you know, do employees within your
organization feel that it's a safe working environment?
Do they feel that you're committed to improving their work life and their processes to make
life a little easier for them at work?
Do you provide the systems and the other tools that they need to be successful?
All of these things are folded into the work environment.
It's really how it's perceived by the employees within your organization, not what you necessarily
think in perceptions, reality, regardless of the truth, right?
And so if their perception is this unsafe, to them, it's unsafe, right?
And so it's about managing that perception and helping them understand the work environment
and why the work environment is what it is, or if there needs to be change that you're
committed to making the necessary changes.
Number eight, the organizational rituals and traditions you have within your organization.
And what do I mean by that?
Well, I don't know.
What are your established practices, the ceremonies and rituals that reinforce your organizational
values and build a sense of community?
And this could include things like your team building activities, if you have any, recognition
programs, annual events, a celebrated achievement and milestones.
My two cents on that celebration moment should not be planned on an annual basis.
You can have annual events, but if you wait 12 months to celebrate an accomplishment,
it could be too late.
You should celebrate as you achieve certain milestones within your organization and not
wait, not put it off.
Celebrate as you go, or you may never get there, right?
And so again, going back to last week's episode with Heather, she really focused on organizational
rituals and traditions, you know, how they celebrate each other, how they recognize each
other.
It was so important.
And when I say established practices, I don't mean just your documented procedures, rules,
things.
It's the unwritten rules.
It's the more A's within your organization.
So how do you tend to treat one another?
You know, those types of things, those are your unwritten rules, if you will.
And so you have both written rules, your procedures, your policies, and your unwritten rules.
And you have those in every single organization.
So that's again, your rituals.
Number nine is performance management.
And of course, these are the processes and systems used to evaluate, reward, and develop
employee performance.
And a culture that emphasizes continuous feedback, learning, and growth fosters accountability
and it fosters excellence.
In my view, you know, performance management has really got a bad name, a bad reputation
over time.
You know, when I'm facilitating leadership development, when I get to this part of the
road shop, you know, performance management, I'll ask how many of you enjoy doing performance
evaluations?
And I've never seen anyone raise their hands.
Oh yeah, we just can't wait to do performance evaluation.
Right.
So we create performance management processes that are cumbersome to the direct managers,
employees within your organization.
The employees don't perceive them as meaning much of anything.
And they get that from their leaders, by the way, the commas that are made.
Managers see them as, oh my goodness, as a burden rather than as an opportunity.
And so it just gets a bad reputation.
And one way you can think of performance management to maybe give it a more positive connotation
is instead of performance management, perhaps you need a performance development process.
You're accomplishing some of the same things, but if you're focused on the growth and development
of the employee, instead of the carrot and the stick approach to management, you may
get more effective results.
So I promote performance development processes.
So where is the performance today in relation to the performance goals for the employee
and where they want to be in their career and their next steps within the organization
and tying it to succession planning and all those types of things that really provide
a true incentive for an employee to do things differently.
If the employee thinks, well, this is just a process we go through every year where they
tell me I'm getting 2% salary increase.
It really doesn't mean a whole lot to the employees, just a check the box kind of thing.
And your goal is to take performance management and transition it from a check the box type
of thing to, hey, we believe we're committed to developing our employees and we do that
through our performance development processes.
So you have some thought as you work to create that great place to work within your organization.
And finally, drum roll.
Let me get a drum roll there.
The 10th component to workplace culture, adaptability and change.
And this is the organization's ability to embrace change, innovation and continuous
improvement cultivating a culture that values flexibility, resilience and agility enables
that organization to thrive in dynamic and uncertain environments.
In most organizations, I have to tell you change is a four letter word.
I've heard that no one likes change other than babies, right?
And so change can be seen as a threat.
We can look at it and the way that we manage change can create resistance to change, right?
If you manage change and that we're going to force this down your throats, this is the
way we're going to do it.
And if you don't want to do it, you know, there's the door, right?
You're going to create resistance.
It may not be obvious.
It'll be underground perhaps, but it could be passive resistance, but you will create
resistance to change.
Your job is not to manage change.
Your job is to lead change.
Right?
And what do I mean by that?
You need to establish the leadership within your organization and be perceived as a change
agent.
And it's the way that you communicate the change.
It's the way that you hold people accountable for the change.
It's the way that you deal with systems when you're going through a change within your
organization.
All those things are really important.
So think of change management in different terms, kind of like performance and management.
Think of it as performance development.
Think of change management as change leadership.
How are you going to utilize your leadership skills and your organization's leadership
skills to implement change that increases the satisfaction of your workforce, it helps
you achieve your business goals, that type of thing.
By creating a workforce that embraces change, you can accomplish great things within your
organization.
You increase the agility within your organization and the flexibility within the organization.
I'll give you an example, in my corporate HR career, we had two different divisions
and each division had various sites within the US and other countries.
I was responsible for HR and for the Americas and global talent management.
One business, I won't mention which one, but it had been a part of a long-standing manufacturing
company with deep roots within the US and a lot of hierarchy, a lot of bureaucracy.
Change was very difficult and very slow within our organization.
Our company acquired a part of that business.
Then we had another business where their history was a little different.
We acquired that business and they had been acquired multiple times.
They knew the gig, they knew what to expect and change to them was easier.
We would implement what we felt was a minor change and that was a lesson to us as well.
No change is minor when it comes to employees, they're changing the way that they do things.
It's all nature.
The one business who had gone through multiple changes before were much more flexible, much
more adaptable, easy to implement most changes.
The other business was very resistant to change.
It was very difficult to get them to move off center on any new thing you were trying
to implement within that business.
I can recall from an HR perspective, we were implementing wellness initiatives.
As a part of the wellness initiatives, there was a wellness check and you had to have blood
work drawn so that they could create a baseline for you that hopefully detect things, more
serious long-term illnesses, diabetes and all sorts of things.
It was very effective.
They actually called some very serious things early on and may have said some lines of the
process.
But in the one division that was easy to change, it was no problem.
They adapted it, embraced it.
Their implementation rate was very high in terms of the number of employees who signed
up for the wellness and all that.
The business that was very resistant to change was just the opposite, their implementation
or their acceptance or their involvement percentage was very low.
Their signup percentage for the wellness program was very low.
It took us about three years in that one business and about three times the effort we put into
it than the one that's more flexible to get them to the point where they really understood
the nature of the change.
They got it and their implementation rate increased.
I was talking with one of the employees out in the manufacturing area and he had not yet
signed up for the wellness initiative.
So I asked him, I said, why won't you sign up?
Why won't you participate?
It's really a value added.
It could increase your health longer term and decrease your benefit costs.
That was the other astounding thing.
We were offering very attractive incentives for them to sign up and they were still reluctant
and resistant to signing up.
So I was like, so why aren't you willing to give it a chance, to give it a shot?
His response was...
He was one of those employees who always had issue with everything.
He always had a problem with everything.
I knew him on a first name basis being in HR.
But anyway, when I asked him that question, his response was, well, I don't trust the
company.
Who knows?
Maybe taking our blood and with DNA and all of that sort of thing, you might be trying
to clone people.
I don't want to be cloned.
I chuckled and with my warped sense of humor, I said, well, you don't have anything to worry
about because if we were going to clone employees, we would clone employees with a positive attitude
and who would embrace the change.
We wouldn't clone the employees who think like you think.
Now I probably shouldn't have said that, but the employee did get the joke and laughed.
And what happened?
He signed up for the wellness initiative and I found out he had very high blood pressure
and they put him on a mediation program to help him better control his blood pressure.
So he saw almost an immediate benefit.
Plus he got a reduction in his benefit premiums for participating in the wellness initiative.
So again, the warped sense of humor can get you in trouble on occasion, especially when
you're in HR, but he had to look in the mirror and see it and see what he was thinking and
saying and how ridiculous that was to finally say, you know, I'm probably being a little
bit over the top and he actually participated.
And when you get that type of person involved and engaged, guess what?
They talk it up to their other employees and get them involved as well.
So number 10 and adaptability and change.
And so let's go through the list.
10 critical components of workplace culture.
And as I mentioned these and I intentionally separate these 10, I don't want you to think
that they're 10 to stand on their own.
Each of these 10 components are interwoven into each other.
All right.
And so you can't have a positive workplace culture and ignore any of these 10.
You got to address each of these 10 components.
So again, the 10 are values and beliefs, vision and mission, your leadership style.
And again, when you think of your leadership style, begin to think of it as if people were
describing your organizational leadership style, how would they describe it?
Your means of communication, your processes for communication, your level of employee
engagement.
What are you doing to try to increase the engagement of your employees?
How do you feel about diversity and inclusion?
I mean, you can talk a good game, but are you demonstrating it?
Your work environment, are you maintaining a safe work environment where people feel
that they can contribute their ideas to help the organization be more successful?
What about your organizational rituals and traditions?
Do you take celebration seriously?
Do you take recognition seriously?
And if you don't, what do you need to do different or do better?
More performance management processes, is it really performance management with a carrot
and a stick or is it more performance development where you're focusing on growth and what might
be an obstacle to an individual employee's growth?
And then number 10, finally, adaptability and change.
How adaptable is your organization to change?
How flexible are they with changing conditions and changing needs within your marketplace
and that sort of thing?
So these components interact and intersect to shape the overall culture of your organization.
They influence your employee behavior, they influence your employees attitudes, they influence
your organizational outcomes, your goals.
And actually they can be seen outside your organization and especially in small healthcare
when you're talking about patients, patients' families and the community itself, it's really
important how they view the organization and they can see and they have their own ideas
and perceptions about your organizational culture and how you treat employees.
I mean, think about it, have you ever walked into Walmart or a food store or any place
like that and the employee behind the customer service counter at the cash registers complaining
about their job or complaining about another employee or doing all that stuff?
How did it make you feel about that organization, about the manager or the leader in that organization?
The same could happen in your organization.
How are your nurses talking about your organization?
What do they say to the patients and the patients' family?
Are they talking about we?
This is what we're doing or are they talking about they?
This is what they're making me do.
That's a million dollar question, isn't it?
And if you don't know, you need to know.
So those are all important for healthcare organizations.
The strong and positive workplace culture is critical for attracting and retaining top
talent for driving performance, driving innovation and fostering the success of your organization.
And with that, I would like to close this episode with a quote.
And here's the quote.
And this is by Simon Sinek.
Corporate culture matters.
How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything for better or for worse.
Again, corporate culture matters.
How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything for better or for worse.
And that's by Simon Sinek.
So thank you again for listening.
I look forward to next week's episode.
Work hard to be the flagship within your industry.
Goodbye.
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