Workplace culture stems from the top.
The board are ultimately responsible for setting the strategic direction and the culture of your organisation and the leadership team are responsible for implementing it.
Workplace culture directly impacts on employee engagement. Employee engagement represents the level of motivation, satisfaction and connection that an individual has with the organisation. In service industries, measuring staff engagement and assessing the cultural climate is extremely important in achieving client and corporate goals.
Attending to the workplace culture should be a regular part of every business or organisation’s risk management plan.
A tense, negative or toxic workplace culture puts you and your staff at risk. It can be the breeding ground for costly mistakes, low productivity, high staff turnover, complaints or grievances, and a compliance notice from the Fair Work Ombudsman or your industry regulator.
Broadly speaking, there are self-assessing questions that boards should consider on a regular basis. For example:
How approachable is our leadership team?
Are we modelling the organisational values?
Are we listening to our employees?
Do we provide our employees with regular feedback, training, recognition and opportunities for improvement?
Do we solicit feedback from key stakeholders?
Are we fully compliant?
It is also advisable that boards receive regular information on various People & Culture metrics, such as staff turnover rate, leave accrual rate, EAP uptake rate, legal/compensation claim metrics and cultural climate metrics.
One tool used to measure the cultural climate of an organisation is a workplace cultural review. This is a proactive process designed to understand the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours shared by individuals and teams. Regular cultural reviews can be the catalyst for constructive workplace change and the continuous improvement of workplace relationships, staff engagement, productivity, safety, and performance.
The experienced team at WorkPlacePLUS facilitates workplace cultural reviews for organisations and teams in the healthcare, community, and not-for-profit sectors. Our carefully controlled process allows employees to provide crucial feedback in a confidential setting, helping to uncover any trends, patterns or hot spots which may need to be considered.
WorkPlacePLUS can support the board and leadership team to work through any opportunities for further action or improvement that were identified by the cultural review.
For more information or to book your workplace cultural review, please contact us today.