How to Improve Organizational Culture in 5 Impactful Steps

The work culture is changing, and frontline leaders have started to realize that employees expect more than just a paycheck. They also want to feel a genuine sense of belonging, enjoy more flexibility, and feel fulfilled by their work. 

Frontline employees are quitting their jobs in unprecedented numbers. With more than 40% of employees considering leaving their current positions, leaders are eager to foster a positive company culture that improves employee retention. 

Secchi is an employee relationship management solution that empowers frontline leaders to create a positive work environment for better productivity and retention. Request a demo to learn how Secchi can help you harness the full potential of your team.

What Is Organizational Culture? 

Organizational culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms that characterize an organization. While it may sound vague at first, your company’s organizational culture defines the way your team members interact with each other, how decisions are made, and how conflicts are resolved. 

A positive work culture fosters a supportive and motivating workforce, which leads to higher productivity and job satisfaction. In turn, a negative or toxic organizational culture can lead to high turnover, low morale, and decreased performance.

Developing a Strong Organizational Culture for Frontline Teams

Frontline teams face unique challenges when building the right organizational culture. High workload and stress, peaking turnover rates, and communication barriers can make it difficult to foster a positive workplace culture. 

Overcoming these challenges requires a targeted and consistent effort from frontline leaders. Here are seven ways your organization can improve organizational culture for positive long-term outcomes. 

How to Create a Positive Organizational Culture: 7 Ideas 

1. Define Your Mission and Values

Studies show that only 43% of frontline employees trust their organizations and 74% of them report feeling disconnected from the company’s corporate staff. This connection gap can make your employees feel undervalued and unmotivated. Developing a strong mission and values that your employees resonate with can help improve the connection between your organization and the workforce. 

When employees understand and resonate with the company’s mission and values, they find purpose in their work beyond daily tasks. It instills a sense of pride, belonging, and motivation that transforms repetitive responsibilities into meaningful contributions toward a shared goal.

When defining your mission and values, it’s important to avoid generic language that lacks depth and specificity. Make your mission and values authentic, people-driven, and easy to resonate with. This is one of the most important characteristics of organizational culture and what sets you apart from competitors. 

2. Assess Existing Company Culture

If you want to improve your company culture, you first need to understand what’s working and where your leadership is falling short. There are a few ways to evaluate existing culture, including: 

• Gather employee data: collect and analyze performance metrics like attendance, warnings, quality of service, and more to get a good understanding of how engaged your workforce is. If your employees are routinely disengaged, it’s a sign of an unhealthy organizational culture.
  
• Talk with your employees: conduct anonymous surveys and one-on-one meetings to get insights into your employee experience and identify how you can better support your teams. Focus groups and exit interviews are also great ways to get more information.
  
• Identify behavior patterns: spend time analyzing the data and feedback you receive to uncover deeper culture and engagement issues.
  

3. Improve Onboarding

First impressions matter. A well-structured onboarding program not only acquaints new hires with the organization’s operations and expectations, but also immerses them in the cultural fabric. With 33% of new employees quitting within the first 90 days, fostering a sense of connection early on is essential. 

A positive onboarding experience fosters a sense of belonging, reduces anxiety, and boosts confidence, which makes it easier for employees to be engaged from day one. In turn, a negative onboarding experience can make employees feel confused and undervalued.

Clear communication, hands-on training, constructive feedback, and buddy systems are just some ways to improve your employee onboarding experience and create a positive company culture.

4. Empower Leaders

If you’ve ever Googled “what are the elements of organizational culture,” chances are that strong leadership came up as one of the most important factors. Leaders serve as role models and set the tone for the entire workforce. They can inspire and motivate employees, encouraging them to actively engage with their work and stay on track. 

➕ In the post-pandemic economy, frontline leaders face unique challenges when trying to build a great culture for their teams. They have to overcome communication barriers and balance meeting operational demands with dedicating time to cultural initiatives.

With many frontline supervisors being first-time managers, it’s essential to give them the tools they need to become better, more effective leaders. 

Using an employee relationship management tool like Secchi gives leaders access to turn-by-turn leadership direction and actionable data so they can engage their teams through recognition, coaching, and accountability. By leveraging the data provided by our software, leaders can make informed decisions and drive positive change. 

5. Provide Meaningful and Frequent Recognition 

Recognition is a fundamental human need. People are naturally wired to want their efforts and accomplishments to be validated, and your frontline workforce is not an exception. 63% of routinely recognized employees report wanting to stay at their current company — an important consideration in the era of Great Resignation. 

A strong recognition program can help you cultivate a positive and vibrant organizational culture. When employees are acknowledged and appreciated for their hard work, it boosts their morale, motivation, and job satisfaction. This is especially important in the frontline context, where many daily tasks are repetitive. 

Employee recognition has the potential to fall flat. Traditional methods of recognizing and engaging employees, such as annual reviews or pizza parties, can actually be perceived as insincere and have a limited (or negative) impact on organizational culture. 

Focus on providing meaningful recognition on a regular basis. Stay away from flattery, be thoughtful, and implement new approaches, such as gamification, to make employee recognition a daily part of your company culture, not a once-in-a-month event.

For example, interactive scoreboards are a great example of gamified recognition. You can reward your employees with a point every time they complete a desired action, such as assembling a product or arriving to their shift on time. This approach turns repetitive tasks into an engaging competition, boosting recognition levels.

Secchi offers robust gamification possibilities to help frontline leaders harness the full potential of their teams and drive positive change. Request a demo to learn how Secchi can help you improve your organizational culture, one step at a time.