Culture Over Coffee
Culture Over Coffee
Culture Snapshot: Need-To-Know Findings on Company Culture
In this quick, Culture Snapshot episode, we’re kicking off our season-long deep dive into ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report by pointing out some of this year’s need-to-know findings.
That is to say, on the other side of this episode, you’ll have a bird’s-eye-view of the many ways in which people are currently feeling about the experience of working at their organization.
LINKS:
ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report
Beth Sunshine
Up Your Culture
Hello and welcome to Culture Over Coffee, a podcast focused on improving company culture and fostering employee engagement. Every week, we chat with experts and thought leaders about the latest information and proven practices you can use to reduce regrettable turnover, increase productivity on your team and retain key customers. So pour a cup of your favorite brew and join us. I'm your host, Beth Sunshine, svp at Up your Culture and the Center for Sales Strategy. In this quick Culture Snapshot episode, we're kicking off our season-long deep dive into ENGAGE 2024: The Company Culture Report, by pointing out some of this year's need-to-know findings. On the other side of the season, you'll have a good bird's-eye view of how people are feeling about their current workplace and its culture, and you'll have some good ideas for what you can do to enhance your own culture.
Beth Sunshine:Now that the ENGAGE 2024 surveys are closed, the company culture report has been released I'm really excited to spend this season of Culture for Coffee kind of digging into it, talking with engagement specialists, culture coaches, other experts. I'm going to break down all that we learned and share how company leaders can use all of this insight to increase engagement to improve productivity. It's going to be a good season. We're kicking off this season with this culture snapshot. Our team, as you can imagine, has spent countless hours poring over this data, deciphering all of the stories that it tells, and I've highlighted some of the most interesting findings and trends I've got here with you to share today. My goal is to spend the next 10 minutes or so giving you a very good look, a little peek, inside US businesses so you can see what's happening behind the scenes, what's happening with company culture, employee engagement and all of the hot topics that determine whether an organization is a great place to work. So I want to start with a broad understanding of how engaged people are at work and I kind of want to set the stage.
Beth Sunshine:You've maybe heard me do this in the past, but I want you to imagine all of your employees gathered around your company campfire. You've got some really engaged employees who are actively creating the sparks. They're lighting the fire, they're keeping it stoked. And then, behind that group of engaged employees, there's another group. There's a group of people who are lounging back in their lawn chairs. They've got their feet kicked up. They're letting other people do the work. This group may be happy. They're enjoying all of the benefits of the campfire, but they aren't contributing in any way. Those are your not engaged employees. And then you have a third group of people at your company campfire. In this group they're periodically dumping water on the fire, they're removing logs so that it doesn't burn quite as brightly. Those toxic employees. Those are your actively disengaged people and I want you to have that visual in mind because I think it's really difficult to hear that.
Beth Sunshine:This year's survey showed that only 55% of participants are engaged at work. That leaves a lot of people who are either kicked back and checked out or, even worse, actively working against the growth of your organization, and disengagement can be contagious. Imagine working really hard to build a fire, put logs on that fire and other people are dousing the flames. That would probably decrease your energy for all that work you're doing. I find it really concerning, speaking of that, that 86% of our respondents work side by side with people who are actively disengaged, not even just checked out, but working against the good of the organization. Imagine how that can bring down energy and morale and productivity. So we wanted to learn more about that.
Beth Sunshine:We asked people about their future expectations, of their cultures, and we saw some mixed results. We saw that employees and managers feel quite differently about this. Frontline employees are more positive than their managers are. 81% are hopeful. They believe that their cultures will improve. I love that, but 30% of managers report that they do not like their current culture and they believe it's only getting worse. So here's the message I have for those managers and for anyone listening who feels the same way If you manage other people, you have the power to change this, and here's how.
Beth Sunshine:First, check yourself. How is your own level of engagement? If you're disengaged, your people are three times more likely to be disengaged. And if you're not the problem, then you need to figure out what is the problem and you need to make a plan to change it. This survey showed that 71% of employees whose companies were intentional about improving their culture saw improvement. So consider that If you're in a position of management, you can make change. Imagine the difference you can make if you're intentional in that way. The first thing that you're going to see with a culture improvement is stronger employee retention, and that is desperately needed.
Beth Sunshine:We learned that 47% of those surveyed have actively considered leaving their jobs recently. When an employee is clocking in and then checking out, it's obviously bad. It's bad for the employee, it hurts the company. So in those situations actually it's probably not a bad thing when they do leave their job. But this is a huge number. I mean just to kind of repeat that that's nearly half of the people surveyed who said that they've actively considered recently leaving their jobs. I mean that tells us how checked out they are. In truth, if we're honest with ourselves, they've probably already left the organization. They just haven't told their employers that yet. And turnover is expensive. Hiring, training that's hard. It's so much better to just engage the employees that you've already worked so hard to get. So on that news, or on that note rather, I've got some good news for you.
Beth Sunshine:I was excited to share this part. We know how important it is that people have a strong sense of purpose at work, and we learned that 90% of respondents 9 out of 10, they do feel a sense of purpose in the work that they do. I find that so very reassuring, considering the engagement data, because what it tells me is the vast majority of people are doing work that they find meaningful. So if their companies make an effort to improve their culture, if they create an environment that also feels meaningful, it probably won't take much for those people to start feeling more inspired, more engaged. Now, how can we do that? How can we create that kind of environment? You know it's a big part of gathering all of this data. We want to learn about how to improve, and the goal is for more people to be contributing to a roaring fire to win over those who are dousing the flames.
Beth Sunshine:The only way to improve employee engagement is to strengthen your culture. Those two go hand in hand. When you have a thriving company culture, employees will be highly engaged. If your culture begins to slip, so will your level of employee engagement. We know that there are four ways that you can boost your culture, four ways you can lift engagement, and we call those the four engagement elevators. We've got shared mission, people development, valued voice and earned trust, and I'm not going to go into any of those deeply right now. We'll touch on that in our future episodes this season.
Beth Sunshine:But I did pull out a few interesting things that I know you're going to want to walk away with. Starting with shared mission, we know that employees want to have a clear sense of where their organization is going and why they're working so hard to get there. They also want to understand the rules of the game for success, and that's where company core values come in. Core values set the bar high for whatever behavior is going to be celebrated, and it also lets employees know what behaviors just can't be tolerated here. When a company establishes core values and then they live up to their core values, employees applaud. They want their companies to be who they say they are.
Beth Sunshine:In our company, we value quality, integrity, responsiveness. When someone demonstrates those behaviors, as a group, we celebrate them because we truly value them. This is one of the most disappointing aspects of this year's survey, in my opinion. This one bothered me. We learned that 87% of those surveyed work for companies whose leaders tolerate behaviors that don't align with their core values. So, in other words, I mentioned our core values are quality, integrity, responsiveness. It would be like saying that we value behaviors like integrity, but then we take a shortcut. We want to make something happen and so we demonstrate a lack of integrity instead. When we don't live up to our core values, we break those bonds of trust that we have with our people, and when that happens, engagement drops.
Beth Sunshine:Imagine playing a sport where the rules say you cannot push and shove other players, but then the refs and the coaches they turn the other way when pushing and shoving happens, and the coaches, they turn the other way when pushing and shoving happens. How engaged would you be in that game, moving forward, or would you be just like you know? I don't even know what's happening here. If you want my advice, this is the first thing you have to get squared away. If you want a thriving culture, it's the best place to start. Identify your true core values and then make them real. So let's turn our attention.
Beth Sunshine:That was shared mission. We'll turn our attention to the second engagement elevator, which is people development. You know, I know, people need to feel cared about, they need to feel supported at work and it's critical that they believe they're growing. Nobody wants to be stagnant. We learned that only 37 percent of people work for companies that are extremely focused on developing their people, and that's down from 51% last year. So last year was 51% of people who said that their companies are not extremely focused on this. Now 37%. 48% told us that they think their companies are somewhat focused, but 15 percent of respondents shared that their development is not important to their leaders at all. Human nature is to fight stagnation. We want to develop. So those 15% who say their growth is of no consequence to their companies, they're likely on that list of people who are considering other employment opportunities. Certainly they are on the list of people who are not engaged.
Beth Sunshine:Only 45% of respondents receive feedback from their manager on a daily or weekly basis, and that's another key to engagement. 35% said that they only hear input on how they're doing four times a year or less. And remember, feedback isn't negative. Feedback can be positive or negative. So imagine, only four times a year, someone noticing what you're doing, whether it's good or bad, and then 12% never receive meaningful feedback at all. We just talked about how it's so important for people to feel as though they're growing, and it can't happen in a vacuum. It can only happen in relation to someone else.
Beth Sunshine:The third engagement elevator is valued voice, which is about strong two-way communication between people and departments, and it looks like interdepartmental communication is lacking for most, with 79% reporting that collaboration and communication between departments needs improvement. But the more shocking revelation for me involved how employees answered the question of whether their opinions matter at work. Here's what we learned there 55% reported that they don't believe their opinions always matter at work, and that set off warning bells for me. We know that when people believe their opinions matter, they share them. When 55% don't believe their opinions matter, idea sharing and innovation, they stop happening and companies are less likely to avoid potential obstacles, even tragic instances. Look at what's happening with Boeing right now and over the last many years. We know from whistleblowers that the culture at Boeing became toxic over time. Employees were discouraged from speaking up when they saw a problem and there was an unwritten rule from what we heard in their culture, which was keep your questions, your problems, to yourself. Your opinions don't matter, and we know the outcome of that. So something to think about.
Beth Sunshine:The last snapshot I'll share with you today has to do with the fourth engagement elevator, which is earned trust. I alluded to the importance of trust earlier when we talked about core values doing what you say you're going to do. It goes beyond just your manager or your coworkers. People want to work for organizations that are trustworthy. So we learned in Engage 2024 that 50% of people can't always count on their managers to follow through.
Beth Sunshine:Maybe they're saying one thing doing another. They're seeing the same thing from leaders at the top of their organizations. Maybe they're just not following through on the promises they made. Regardless, that's got to turn around. Employees can't work like that for long. So I'm excited to spend this season of Culture Over Coffee talking with the experts. We're going to go through the best practices that you can use to improve culture, to increase engagement, to make your place a great place to work. So tune in, join the conversation. Thanks so much for spending time with us on Culture Over Coffee. If you've enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe and join us for every episode. For more helpful information on the topics of company culture and employee engagement, visit us at upyourculturecom.
