Company culture has been affecting business goals for many years. It isn’t new, it was first acknowledged in 1951. However, it didn’t become mainstream until the 1980s. As more families became dual income earners and materialism fueled premium name-brand products, work-life balance became a hot topic at the water-cooler. Forty-years later we are still talking about it. For good reason. History has proven it’s a business strategy that works. Unfortunately, many companies ignore culture until it becomes a glaring problem. Proactively making company culture an integral part of your strategy can prevent future problems and and have a positive effect on reaching goals. Here are 3 ways company culture can positively affect reaching your business goals.
Research shows employee satisfaction with company culture improves employee performance. Consequently, investing in company culture can have a big ROI. Below are a few employee stats that outline how the relationship between the employees and the culture can be a key to success.
1. Higher Employee Engagement
Engagement is important because it yields better results. According to a poll, it can increase profitability by 21%. Engaged employees are more focused on the task at hand. Distractions fall to the background and meaningful work gets done. It would be nice if that’s is how it always happened, but unfortunately that’s not the case.
People are often just going through the motions, more than half, 53% are checked out. This can happen when people feel burnt out or unappreciated. This sort of check-the-box culture erodes enthusiasm and quality of work. Mistakes start to happen, productivity slows and people stop communicating. This is when systems start to break down and performance suffers.
Winning companies create an environment that encourages engagement. They make it easy for people to bring ideas forward. Create opportunities for soliciting and sharing ideas. Encourage employees to use their expertise in their role to communicate problems and offer solutions. They create openings.
They also set realistic expectations on the review and adoption of ideas. Then follow through on communication with employees consistently; so people know when to expect updates. They make the employees part of the strategy conversation without risky overexposure. As a reseult, they tell them what they can when they can, and tell them what they can’t, but will when the time is right.
Companies with consistent results offer rewards for high-levels of engagement that help to meet company goals. A simple verbal recognition is great or an added benefit, but financial compensation is always king. A raise or a bonus incentivizes higher levels of engagement. The financial gains can often offset any additional expenses; so these sorts of incentives should be easy to provide in the right environment.
2. Increased Communication & Alignment
Previously company culture over the years has had many iterations. Today aligned corporate values in addition to quality and type of product and services they provide are important to employees.
Strong and highly-functioning cultures have a good flow of communication. Not chatty or gossipy, but real meaningful conversations about results. This means goals stay in the forefront. Mechanisms are in place to ensure critical information is flowing. It allows information to flow up to top management, down to essential employees and out to customers and partners.
Alignment, although it is often overlooked as individual departments focus on their specific goals; is a key to momentum. Momentum is necessary to reach goals. According to research, highly aligned organizations outperform their peers, including growing revenue 58% faster and 72% more profitable. It is worth the extra effort to ensure your team is aligned on your business goals. It can pay out in dividends.
A good communication plan ensures there aren’t blindspots. Utilizing digital procedures and tools to collect information increases the visibility of potential problems and empower employees to share ideas. An annual surveys collect targeted feedback and provide a clear understanding of the company goals and employee satisfaction. Corrections can be made to gain alignment across department and support reaching big goals.
3. Increased Innovation
A good company culture is a possible breeding ground for innovation. When people with common goals are thriving in an environment that encourages engagement, and builds alignment, it fosters the exchange of ideas and the result is innovation. Innovation is an often strategic competitive advantage that can demand premium prices. This means higher profitability. An innovation can be something big or small. It comes in a variety of forms, but always adds value and has great potential to make money.
An environment rich with innovation ideas stays cutting edge and doesn’t need to compete simply on price. This makes it much easier to reach tough financial goals. When the product demand is not dependent strictly upon price profits are more plentiful. It’s a nice advantage until that if continued can keep your business in the lead position for many years.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a healthy work atmosphere has a direct impact on the likelihood of meeting company goals. The benefits to positively increase communication and achieve higher employee engagement both are imperative to creating innovation. It is through the free flowing ideas shared between high-performing individuals with common goals that stimulates a workplace innovation. These companies stay a step ahead and are known leaders in their industry.
