Consider this: is a lack of focus on culture and people in your organisation costing you opportunities to grow and thrive? Undermining profitability and sustainability? Making it harder to hold onto your most talented people?
Any year brings with it opportunities and challenges. But in our COVID-affected world, we’ve seen a few more serious challenges:
- Organisations have had to adapt their workplace arrangements to fit around people working from home, the inability of people to travel, and the need for effective ways for people to communicate remotely.
- With the borders closed, organisations are finding it harder to recruit experienced people from overseas.
- As a result there’s a shortage of talent. The pressure’s on to keep good people, maintain continuity and avoid the expense of recruiting in a competitive job market.
- The risks around gender inequality and inclusion are coming under increased scrutiny within organisations.
Personally, I’ve always found that there’s something quite disarming about being asked to “manage” a situation in a completely unfamiliar environment. There’s both nowhere to hide and also no familiar foundations to fall back on.
But it’s also the territory where the magic happens. Where you gain new perspectives that enable growth, if we are willing to go there.
Now’s the time to review your organisational culture
The benefits of a positive organisational culture include better employee retention, a clearer focus on the organisation’s vision and values, improved goal-setting and overall performance. It can benefit your brand image and attract the type of customers you need.
The pandemic has led to more Australian business leaders realising the advantages of embedding flexibility as a strategic performance driver. A recent report, ‘Equitable Flexibility: Reshaping our Workforce’ conducted by Chief Executive Women, in partnership with global consultancy firm Bain & Company, shows 95% of employees want more flexible work arrangements.
With the end of financial year fast approaching for many businesses, it’s a perfect time to consider how your business is really tracking. And I mean, beyond the surface of those regular, easy-to-track financial measures and into the somewhat murky waters of your leadership, people and culture.
For businesses, there’s no better way to highlight where the cracks or potential fault lines are, than to be thrown into a completely unprecedented environment. An environment where the conditions have changed and there’s no similar experience to draw from.
When we’re put into new situations like this – as individuals or as companies – we’re given the opportunity to view our strengths and weaknesses in a different light.
What may have worked for us before as a strength, may lose its value or not serve us as we push forth into new terrain.
It’s easy to ignore the things that happen below the surface:
- those poor behaviours that get tolerated over and over
- the messages that are not clearly and consistently communicated both up and down the line
- the different customer touchpoints in your business that refuse to collaborate or even compete against one another, or
- the specialist talent that has always been valued within the organisation that has now gone silent.
What’s the real cost of not paying attention to your culture and your people?
Wouldn’t it be better to understand what is really going on and how that’s affecting the sustainability of your business? And if so, how will you curate a situation that enables a safe way for voices to be heard, for the dots to be connected? For those underlying critical factors to be identified and addressed?
After more than 12 months of COVID times, leaders, teams and individuals are finding new ways of working, communicating, collaborating and getting things done.
It’s a great time to stop and invest in shining a light on what is really happening with your leaders and teams right now. To identify priorities for making important adjustments that will help set your people and culture up for success with healthy, high-performance habits that are inclusive, engage people and enable sustainable growth.
An audit of your organisational culture can start the new financial year with the best foundations
We’d love to talk to you more about how we can help you to optimise your culture and talent for today and tomorrow. Please give me a call on 0423 163 319 or email me at joanne@fisherpeopleinculture.com if you would like to learn more. Remember, it’s never too early or too late to start working on your culture.
