Here's a successful strategy to get your started:

Ask – Gut instincts are not a good measure of culture. To measure culture, you need to ask your employees about their experiences. Your employees will tell you their thoughts and what they need. Gathering employee feedback will let you know what's working and what's not. Creating a culture of feedback where it's not only requested, but also expected, leads to more transparency and communication throughout the organization.

Developing an employee listening strategy will help you take the reins on culture in your organization. Gather feedback at different points in the employee journey like following onboarding, after a significant change, or when an employee exits the organization. This provides insights into what might be hurting your organization's culture and how you can better the employee experience and in turn, create an engaging work culture.

Analyze – Feedback shouldn't be analyzed in a silo. It should help you visualize exactly what is going on in your organization. Take the feedback and connect it to other metrics like turnover and number of performance conversations. Create an employee engagement dashboard to see if your engagement strategy is working. Have your fingers on the pulse of turnover by calculating your turnover rate and learning why people are leaving the organization. Use your people analytics to discover if employees are meeting expectations, if managers are effective, or if you need to develop a plan to address skill gaps.

Determine what's linked and prioritize what needs to be fixed by aligning with business objectives. Figure out what an engaging culture should look like at your organization and what changes are needed to get there. Then create a strategy to remove barriers to achieving your business goals and aim your culture at engagement.

Act – It's not enough to just ask. Show employees you care by making meaningful changes that better the employee experience and help everyone reach their goals. When employees see success, the business sees success. Since employees experience culture strongly through mission and values, recognition, and performance, take the first steps in shaping your culture by honing in on those experiences.

Increase communication connected to your mission and values. Ensure this communication is frequent and clear. Recognize behaviors connected to the organization's values and create channels for employee-to-employee recognition. Show employees their work is appreciated by recognizing the work that went into a project and connecting it to the organization's goals. Align employee goals with the organization's so employees can see how they contribute to the organization's success. And encourage managers to have frequent feedback conversations with their employees that builds on the culture of feedback you create with a listening strategy.

Instant Insights /

Creating Culture: The Critical Role of Employee Listening

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