4 Ways HR Managers Can Improve Company Culture

For many HR professionals, one of the main overarching goals is to create and maintain a positive company culture.

Culture is the bedrock of any company, and if it's not a priority, there will be obvious consequences; the most obvious being turnover.

• 78% of people have left a job due to a poor culture fit (Robert Walters)

• 66% of employees say they would quit if they feel unappreciated (Forbes)

But how can the HR department be a driving force of change? Keep reading.

STRIVE TO CREATE A COMMUNITY, NOT JUST A WORKPLACE

First things first, any HR professional should have the goal of creating and sustaining a culture where people enjoy coming to work in the morning. They enjoy seeing their colleagues, catching up with their bosses, and working towards their goals.

This means you can’t just think about a workplace running like a machine, you need to think of it as a community. Work is a huge part of life and if you want people to be engaged, stick around, and work hard, you need to make them feel fulfilled and valued in that part of their life.

Community is built first and foremost through communication. This means encouraging employees to get to know one another. This could be through work socials or encouraging a more collaborative work environment. 

But community is also built through employees feeling like they’re a key contributor; allowing them to build emotional commitment for the company. Team Stage found that employees perform 69% better when they have a strong emotional commitment. This can come from many things but a great way to start is helping employees reach their goals through performance management strategies. This way employees will feel valued that the company is putting effort into helping them achieve their goals.

IMPLEMENT A BOTTOM-UP APPROACH 

If you want a culture where employees feel heard, inspired, and ambitious to keep achieving, having a bottom-up approach is the way to go. 

Whilst managers and directors need to be making the most crucial decisions, taking away the strict hierarchy will not only leave room for creativity, but it’ll make employees feel more than just a nameless cog in the work machine. 

Ways to do this could be through:

• Conducting yearly engagement surveys

• Encouraging managers to avoid micromanagement

• More team brainstorming sessions

HAVE 1-1 MEETINGS WITH EMPLOYEES

Whilst it’s important to ensure managers are conducting their own 1-1s with employees, HR should be doing their own. 1-1s with managers are mainly to talk about performance, goals, and areas of improvement. They may ask simple questions like “How are you?”, or “How are you coping with stress?”, and that will increase trust and openness between employees and their managers, but as a HR leader, you’ll probably be far more capable of helping them on that front. 

Firstly, employees should naturally be able to open up to their People Manager more than their manager because the People Manager is seen as more of a support system and employee advocate. Over 50% of employees say they don’t trust HR (TLNT) – it’s your job to change that.

But also, HR leaders have a better understanding of employee policies, questions to ask, and how to action the answers. If an employee raises a concern, a HR leader is going to be far more equipped to not just support that individual employee, but look at the overall culture and structure of the company to ensure that employees are being supported as much as possible. Employees can provide the best insights and feedback about the company’s culture because they are the culture and experience it every day.

BUILD TRUST WITH MANAGERS

Whilst HR leaders have the biggest impact on how the organisation runs, the policies, and the values, they tend to take a more back seat role due to managers being employee’s main point of contact. This is why it’s important to cultivate transparent and trusted relationships with managers. 

You want the leaders of the organisation to trust your judgement and feel as though you understand their vision. It’s tough being the middle man between both employees and employers, but the best way to get an understanding of both and support both is by communicating with both.

This also means relaying any important information back to them, keeping them updated with employee surveys, and brainstorming with them about ways to improve the HR department. But building trust with managers shouldn’t be to the detriment of employees. If you’re relaying information about certain feedback, keep it anonymous. 

- Written by Tim Macmillan

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