When we finally look back on 2020, we will find lasting lessons in how organizations responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and global shutdown. As a defining moment for both employers and employees, the combined public health and economic crisis will leave lasting impacts on employee behaviors and outcomes regarding engagement, retention and commitment.
One critical realization many organizations have already come to is that creating a resilient culture needs to be a priority. Employers’ ability to respond to the challenges brought on by a crisis is directly dependent on their ability to create a collaborative, organizationwide partnership with employees.
A resilient culture is something that every organization can and should actively cultivate. Even before the current crisis resolves, organizations can be fostering behaviors and putting structures into place that will set them up for long-term resilience and success.
The Power of Culture for Shaping the Employee Experience
Culture influences all aspects of the employee experience. It is what employees feel when they interact with the organization every day. It shapes employees’ perceptions by permeating the organization’s environment, influencing which programs are offered and determining how work gets done. An organization’s culture can also positively or negatively multiply the effect of moments such as onboarding or promotions that define an employee’s journey within the organization.
Organizations that prioritize the employee experience and put effort into building a better culture will be the ones best poised for success in weathering the current storm. This is because their employees will reshape their strategies, innovate, find solutions and drive value. We know from Mercer’s 2020 Global Talent Trends Study that organizations that exceed their performance goals are three times more likely to include employee experience as part of their people strategy.
Likewise, research reported by Kristine Dery and Ina Sebastian of the MIT Center for Information Systems Research in 2017 revealed that companies with better employee experiences see twice the innovation, double the customer satisfaction and 25 percent better profitability. Each of those outcomes will be critical for recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
The Purpose of Culture Right Now
So, what role will culture play during uncertain times? According to Robert Kreitner and Angelo Kinicki in Organizational Behavior, an organization’s culture impacts its workforce in four fundamental ways.
- It provides a sense of identity, defining who is a member and who isn’t. This will be critically important in a new reality when connections to other sources of identity such as one’s family and social circle have been strained or severed by physical distancing requirements. In the coming months, employers will play an even greater role in helping employees maintain their sense of identity.
- It creates a sense of commitment. With work processes and operations upended, inventing a new normal together will be key. Articulating a shared purpose in responding to the crisis can counterbalance the dire impact of the crisis on employees’ personal well-being.
- It creates stability in systems by defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior. This is essential as people return to workplaces with new protocols such as wearing masks, following physical distancing guidelines and sanitizing surfaces that have been put in place to protect the health and safety of employees and customers. An organization’s culture can play a critical role in ensuring the adoption of those behaviors.
- It helps employees make sense of the world. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. An organization with a strong, supportive culture can leverage that to help employees understand that “we” will get through this together. Every organization can and should be trying to cultivate such a culture.
Four Culture Types: Which Is Best for Employee Experience?
Our own research has identified four types of organizational culture.
- Partnership cultures are characterized by collaboration by employees and leaders who work together in mutually beneficial relationships.
- Paternalistic cultures are characterized by care and control, with leaders acting as caring parents for their employees.
- Transactional cultures are characterized by quid pro quo relationships and people working for individual rewards.
- Adversarial cultures are characterized by command and control structures and relationships based on conflict and exploitation.
Of these, we found that partnership cultures tend to be the most conducive to greater employee engagement and a better employee experience. A partnership culture also best positions an organization to leverage employee creativity to generate innovative ideas and meet challenges.
A field study of 1,700 employers that we previously reported on in “Want to Become a More Engaging Leader? Start Partnering with Your People,” revealed that partnership cultures scored the highest on the variables that will matter most during the recovery and reinvention phases of emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. Those variables are
- Confidence in the future of the organization,
- Clear goals and priorities.
- Cooperation and teamwork. and
- Employee commitment.
What You Can Learn From Partnership Cultures
Even if your organization did not have a partnership culture going into this crisis, you can begin to rapidly reap some benefits to help your ongoing recovery. Here are five actions to take to create a better partnership with employees and improve the employee experience.
Communicate Clearly and Often
Open two-way channels of communication with employees and use those channels to communicate transparently and often. Do not leave anything to the imagination and ensure leadership is visible within the organization. Listen and respond to employees. Do that informally through managers or sessions where employees can ask executives anything. Do it formally by conducting digital focus groups or pulse surveys.
Build a Win-Win Mindset
Be clear and honest with employees about how the crisis affected the organization in the short term and about what the long-term impacts are likely to be. A Mercer survey of public employees showed that respondents’ top concerns about COVID-19 are caring for their families and what the economic impact will be. Addressing those concerns is important. Focus on harnessing employees’ energy to create an environment in which everyone feels they are all in this together and to create a rallying cry to move the workforce forward as one.
Empower Employees to Take Action
Trust employees to do the right thing to meet the needs of customers. One of the drawbacks to a paternalistic culture is its hierarchy that imposes top-down decision-making. Local differences in coronavirus infection rates and patient outcomes favor more agile organizations whose employees feel empowered to bring ideas to the table, make decisions and pivot. Leaders of organizations with partnership cultures solicit and act on ideas from employees.
Work Collaboratively Toward a Common Goal
Support employees by ensuring they can access the resources they need to succeed. Meet them where they are, inquire about their capabilities and ask for their feedback. Try checking in with employees instead of checking up on them.
Recalibrate Priorities and Reward Success
Set new goals and priorities to meet this moment. Recognize successes and innovation by employees whose efforts help the organization achieve the new goals. Such recognition sends a positive message to employees and reinforces the behaviors that are needed to move the organization forward.
Many organizations feel the urge to pull back or become conservative in the face of a crisis. Some fall into a more-paternalistic mindset. Whether your own organization already has a partnership culture or is very far from having one, now is a good time to lean into a partnership model.
Providing a positive employee experience is going to be critical to an organization’s recovery from this deeply disruptive moment. Leaders who are able to engage employees as partners will have the best shot at successfully navigating the COVID-19 crisis. Organizations that get this right will not only create a brighter employee experience, but a long-term resilience that will put them in a good position to overcome whatever the next crisis is.
01 June 2020
Category
HR News Article