Signs That Your Company Culture Is Rotting
It doesn’t take a lengthy employee survey or the work of costly Consultancy services to find out if your company’s culture falls on either end of two extremes. Company Leaders and employees once tuned in enough to its modus operandi, can often confirm the reality of their own working environment with very little prompting. They feel the energy when the environment is good and they experience the funk of a rotting environment when it is bad.
Company Culture Is Currency
The culture of an organization is its overall personality, its essence. It is the experience that people have when they are in the work-space and it characterizes the environment within which the employees work. It is forged by its values, ethics, systems, goals, behaviours and habits. A winning culture includes a healthy level of employee engagement, loyalty, effective communication and productivity, among other things. Likewise, a rotting culture exists where a company is suppressive and dismissive of its employees, displays bad business practices and poor leadership. The culture of your organization, therefore, can contribute greatly to its success or failure.
Bad Company Culture
Leaders must be vigilant in identifying symptoms of rotting culture within their organization in order to allow a positive working environment to blossom. Some of these symptoms include:
1. Lack of core values – An organization without identifiable core values will see its workforce operating without a sense of direction – often away from the organization’s goals.
2. Employees lack trust in the leadership of the company – Employees may become resentful, for example, if their Leaders display behaviours that are contradictory to the company’s stated values. As a result, their authority may be discredited and a barrier formed between themselves and the staff.
3. High turnover rate and lack of loyalty – A bad working environment will often cause employees to abandon a company in search of a less “toxic” workplace and drive away potential talent.
Take a step back, take a look around and see what type of culture is present or emerging within your company. If you suspect that your company needs a change of culture, it would be beneficial to seek impartial and objective intervention immediately, to steer it into the right direction.
Cheers to a happy and healthy workplace!
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Nadine Burrowes-Seaga is a Life & Leadership Coach and the Founder & Chief Energy Officer (CEO) of People Development Consultants