Organizational Culture and Retention        

Do you think you are on the right track to building a learning and high performance organizational culture to retain your top employees? Then you should answer yes to the questions below:

• Do employees feel they belong?

• Are they allowed autonomy to do their work?

• Do they have a voice? Can they make suggestions to influence decision making or ask questions to test the status quo and reduce bureaucracy?

• Do employees feel they are being treated fairly within a team or in the organization?

• Are they being challenged or learning new skills to achieve better results?

• Do they know their purpose? Do they know how their contributions impact the organization?

• Do they feel they are in the right position, that their role on the team is important?

• Do employees know what prompts organizational change and how it will impact them?  

Laying the foundation for an organizational culture that will yield high productivity and performance and simultaneously keep employees happy, safe, and healthy stems from the organization's values, philosophy, and expectations. To begin analyzing where you are in the building of your organizational culture, look at your values and your philosophy and determine if you want to base guidelines on them.  

Whatever method you use to develop your organizational culture, please be sure that you work towards getting "yes" to the questions above. You may start by surveying your new hires about their acclimatization to the company. Were the business and the job what they expected? In addition, survey your employees who have been with the company for longer than six months. Are they still motivated? Do they understand the direction of the company? Do they feel that your organization is where they can continue to develop professionally and personally? To get an even broader base for your organizational culture, survey your customers as well.  

You can create one large program to launch or enhance your organizational culture, or build a series of smaller programs that will bring all aspects together. It is important to encourage employees to promote the programs because in the end, it will be the attitudes and behaviors of all involved that will determine your organizational culture.

An HR Professional Can Influence Your Business' Success           

If you have not been involving HR professionals at the strategic level of the business, you might not have the right plan in place to grow your business. HR professionals can help executive leaders make important decisions because they do the following:

• Build relationships not only for relationship sake but based on trust to advance strategy and achieve goals.

• Generate ideas and suggest strategies based on data - HR leaders are owners of important recruitment and employment data and they stay abreast of technology-related trends.

• Create tools - policies, templates, etc. - to advance and improve operations, bring cohesiveness throughout the organization, and to drive business goals.

• Educate - coach and encourage managers through issues; help them make decisions, acquire new skills, and understand the company's goals that impact the actions they must take with their teams.

HR Professionals have the resources to set your next business venture into motion and at Vital Business Solutions, we have a variety of expertise to help business owners plan and grow with the proper resources and programs. To learn more, please visit us at  www.vitalbusinesssolution.com or call us at 202-832-1388.