Cultivating a thriving work culture and employee engagement are two leading issues that businesses around the globe face today. No matter the industry, size or geography, the influence of corporate culture (or the nonexistence of one) has a powerful impact on the engagement and productivity of your employees.

Prior to joining the McHenry team, I worked for a Global HR Consulting firm and met with companies on a regular basis that were experiencing the signs of a disengaged work culture including retaining top talent, lack of transparency & innovation, and struggling to integrate a multi-generational workforce. These signs are no longer topics brought up by HR, they are now considered critical business issues to organizations around the world.

What Is “Work Culture”?

Work or company culture represents your organizations values, beliefs, vision, behaviors and practices. Basically, it’s the “personality” of your company and preexisting genetic code created during conception. The good news is that an existing work culture requiring transformation, creates an opportunity to strengthen your purpose, redefine your brand and retain top performers that will strategically help advance your company.

The Culture Assessment

The first step in a work culture transformation is “looking under the hood” and assessing the current behaviors and practices. Sheila L. Margolis, P.H.D, author of Building a Culture of Distinction, recommends answering a series of questions that will help you “uncover the essence of your organization– Core Culture”. A few of them include:

• What is the purpose of your organization?
• Why is the work you do important?
• What value is fundamental and distinctive to this organization since its founding?
• Describe the personality or character of this organization.
• What key values, if followed, would help this organization compete and thrive?

Following this discovery process, you have a new set of values to share with your leadership team. A healthy work culture starts from the top and must be clearly communicated to your employees, so new behaviors and practices develop into natural habits and your employees become front line participants of a new, evolving work culture.

Employee Engagement

Numerous studies indicate the significance of employee engagement and how it affects our company profit and overall business performance. The infographic by SingleGrain is a perfect reference connecting the dots to work culture and happy/engaged employees. A Gallup Report shows a staggering 63% of employees are not engaged yet a high level of engagement shows a 28% increase of earnings growth. If engaged employees organically grow in a healthy work culture, why not start there?

Redefining your work culture is not about “gamifying” your office. It’s about clearly communicating your company values, mission and goals to the assets most important to your organization– your employees. One of the many reasons why I love working at McHenry Consulting is our work culture. Our leadership team has done an exceptional job of clearly communicating our values and creating a collaborative environment. While we have no ping pong tables or virtual reality stations, we have a dynamic group of talented people working together, lots of smiling faces and delicious Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Infographic by SingleGrain. Click here for full image: http://bit.ly/2uwLdln