Openness and Unlearning Key to Culture and Engagement at the Workplace

As HR leaders at a round table gathered last week at Bengaluru to take a ‘selfie’ (to be in tune with the millennials!) it seemed evident that the workplace is witnessing a mindset shift.  I had the opportunity to listen in to leaders as they shared perspectives on the evolving workplace dynamics.

Discussing a wide range of themes under the broad topic of ‘culture and employee engagement’ the leaders realized the opportunities and challenges that they faced didn’t easily have a common answer. Culture is unique and shaped by the organization and while sub-cultures exist in teams they manifest in attitudinal changes.

The leaders spoke of satisfaction vs alignment – the latter seen as more relevant in the workplace. Without employees buying in to the organization’s goals, engagement isn't going to be easy. Engaging middle management, openness to try new approaches such as reverse mentoring, listening intently to what employees say and harnessing the potential of employees are essential for a workplace that truly respects and grows in stature.

My key take-aways were:

• Empowering employees, allowing autonomy and opportunities in decision making leads to improved engagement
• A caring environment that fosters trust matters to employees. So do the basics – facilities, cafeteria and transport, for example.
• While culture is tough to change, a contrarian view is that organizations which adapt their cultures to fit in to the newer generations will benefit in the long run
• In an M&A context, culture defines if merging entities stay together. There is growing interest to manage cultures before two companies join hands. It is now getting into the decision making process.
• Culture gets experienced and often differently by employees depending on the situations. Therefore the ‘say-do’ alignment is important for employees to believe in leaders and the organizations they work for
• The regular annual surveys need a revisit with more frequent check-ins. Also, we need to be aware that when people give feedback it is mostly about what doesn’t work rather than what works.
• To decode culture one needs to define it, live the values and code of business ethics and integrate people to the ways of working
• Employees are stakeholders and organizations need to view them as volunteers and brand ambassadors
• The e-generation doesn’t ask about careers. They want to know ‘what the organization stands for’. Therefore, important to harness the passion; or they will go
• While culture gets them in, what keeps them is how leaders and organizations engage
• Opportunities to unlearn and relearn how businesses can function
• Organizations need to hire for culture – teach it ‘without’ teaching. As in observe and learn by role modelling. What makes a difference is a) how leaders engage b) how they walk the talk c) if employees hear them talk about what they believe in
• Important to know that recognition, performance management and frequency of giving feedback need to change according to expectations from the newer generations
• Being transparent and disruptive are expected by staff. Getting middle management to play their part is crucial to engagement and building culture
• Growing need to help employees to work like they live. Which means changing from the inside out
• Interestingly, discussions on how communication can be adapted included conversations on Whatapp for greater agility and mobile learning for those employees on the go.
• The world of work is shifting towards ‘working in clusters’ and giving ‘real-time feedback’ for appraisals.

Overall, the panelists felt that employment needs to be customized while culture will evolve. There are important implications for communicators on the back of these trends and changes. Understanding the newer generation, evolving communication practices to match newer needs and demonstrating agility can help communicators stay relevant in the future workplace.