Whether your organization is seeking to attract new employees or motivate your current staff, it’s worthwhile to examine your workplace culture through the eyes of your employees. Make a habit of regularly evaluating your company culture to identify what you’re doing right and what you can improve.
You begin conveying your workplace culture to your employees from the moment you meet them during the interview. No matter your organization’s focus or mission, your culture should demonstrate to your employees that they each have a valuable role in helping you achieve your goals.
In this guide, we’ll review key questions your organization should ask itself to gauge your company culture holistically. As we dive in, keep in mind unique aspects of your organization’s culture and how you can address them by asking additional questions.
Table of contents
1. Does your employees’ compensation reflect their work?
To attract and retain the best employees for your organization, you must compensate them accordingly given their importance to achieving your goals.
For newer organizations or those adjusting their goals, determining employee compensation is a difficult yet vital task to establish a healthy workplace culture. Consider these areas of a compensation strategy to determine its quality:
- Upward mobility. Rewarding loyal and high-performing employees with promotions and competitive compensation is a retention must. Include career pathing and upward mobility in your compensation plan so employees can see the benefits of staying with you long-term.
- Benefits. Offering benefits like health insurance and paid time off is the industry standard. Take it a step further by offering an employee events budget, volunteer time off, and more.
- Enrichment opportunities. Besides personal benefits, offer professional development perks in your compensation package, such as a conference budget or money towards a graduate degree.
To gauge your compensation packages’ quality, Astron Solutions suggests comparing your offerings with those of other organizations in your industry, looking at things like base pay and variable compensation. For instance, if you find your biggest competitors offering more paid time off or better upward mobility, you might strategize ways to surpass them. Once you’ve adjusted your compensation packages, observe your day-to-day workplace environment and overall performance to assess culture shifts.
2. Are your employees aware of your goals and motivated to reach them?
When all of your employees are clear on what your goals are and understand the roles they play in reaching those goals, they’ll be more motivated, improving your workplace culture in the process.
Beyond incorporating milestone-based rewards into your compensation system and incentive plans, you can also share your organization’s goals with your team and motivate them through:
- One-on-one meetings. Establishing regular one-on-one meetings between directs and middle managers helps close any gaps between directs and upper leadership regarding organizational priorities.
- All Hands meetings. Organization-wide meetings are a great place to introduce your most recent goals to your whole team or larger groups of employees. You can also introduce plans that break down these goals step by step.
- Team building activities. Your team will be more motivated to reach your organization’s goals when they enjoy working together. Look for relevant, creative ideas that provide employees with hands-on experience to understand your goals.
All of these goal-establishing activities should culminate in a performance review in which managers help their direct reports understand their contributions to team-wide objectives.
3. Are you giving your employees opportunities to grow?
Your employees want to grow during their time at your company, and they’ll respond more positively to a company culture that promotes learning and values their development. When you build a workplace learning culture, employees understand that they don’t have to stop learning when their onboarding ends. Make sure that your employees know:
- What they’re working toward. Ensure that employees know which internal positions they may qualify for in the future should they undertake the required training.
- Where they can leverage professional development opportunities. Do your employees know what steps they can take to obtain the skills necessary to develop their careers within your organization, such as attending professional conferences or joining an industry association? Do they know who in your company can help them get started? Clarify your processes for embarking on professional development journeys and answer questions.
- What training resources are available to them. Whether your company offers in-person training sessions, online courses, or both, your employees should know how they can access training resources most relevant to their goals.
If your company or organization is currently working to map out the potential career paths available to your employees, you may benefit from the expertise of a human resources (HR) consultant. Look for a consultant who has experience working with organizations like yours, has a track record of success, and will take a collaborative approach alongside your organization to ensure you get the tailor-made solutions you need.
4. Are you responsive to your employees’ feedback?
Whether they’re looking for professional development opportunities, giving ideas for how your company can increase its revenue, or offering suggestions about reaching an annual goal, your employees likely offer you feedback already. It’s important to ask yourself how much of that feedback you respond to and take into account. Your employees will view your company culture more positively when you provide timely and helpful responses to the feedback they may have.
Ensure that your employees know how they can provide feedback, and act on their responses when appropriate. To encourage employees to provide feedback, make sure that your company:
- Facilitates feedback. Provide your employees with surveys, opportunities to speak with other people in the company, and additional convenient modes of gathering feedback.
- Meets with employees regularly. Ensure that you’re meeting with employees regularly, not just close to onboarding and when they decide to leave your company. This way, you’ll be better equipped to help solve any problems they may encounter and demonstrate that you’re more than willing to take their feedback into account.
- Gratefully acknowledges employee feedback. Employees will have a more positive opinion of your company culture and be more motivated to work toward your company’s goals when they know that their concerns, interests, and opinions are factored into your decision-making. Whether you incorporate employee feedback into your plans or not, make sure that you acknowledge every piece of feedback and thank employees for their thoughts.
Ensure your team has feedback loops in place so you can gauge not only feedback itself but how you collect it. For instance, if you find that your feedback surveys aren’t comprehensive enough, you might need to add more questions from time to time.
When you improve your company culture, you’ll have motivated employees who want to help you work toward your goals. Listening to them, providing them with growth opportunities, compensating them fairly and competitively, and involving them in larger organizational goals is essential in developing the culture of a company or organization where people will be eager to work.
