Your company culture impacts everything. It communicates the brand identity, values and goals. It also dictates what you won’t tolerate. If your culture is off, it can impact the performance of the business and a culture change might be necessary.

Your unique culture needs to be carefully cultivated over time to ensure the healthiest, most productive environment. An unhealthy culture might see team members frequently burning out, high rates of quiet quitting and low productivity.

It can also play a huge role in talent retention. When you take on a new hire, they are relying on their peers to tell them what the culture is. What would your employees say about your business?

A healthy culture will validate your new hire’s decision to work with you, by reinforcing all of the positive things that made them want to apply in the first place. However, if your culture is damaged, you might find new hires can be quickly put off by how things are done, how people interact with each other and the expectations of them in their roles.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though! There are steps you can take to pivot and improve your culture. This can make a happier, healthier working environment for everyone.

What is meant by culture change?

A cultural change is when a business decides to shift its internal culture in a different direction. This could be down to many things, but usually it will be because the culture doesn’t accurately reflect the brand values. Leading through change is an important skill for leaders during this time.

Here are the steps to go through in order to transform your culture:

Define Your Dream Culture

In a dream world, what would your culture look and feel like? It’s much easier to take strategic steps to achieve your goals when you have a clear vision of the end result.

Start by outlining the values you want the business to embody. For example, Alchemist’s values are Bold, Human and Perceptive. They act as guidelines for your expectations and help to communicate who the business is as a collective.

From there, you need to decide what you want the rest of the business to look like based on your values. How can managers be the best leaders? How will you communicate with your teams? What sort of working environment do you want to create? How will you show your people that they are valued?

Clear Goals

Setting clear goals gives you direction. With something to work towards, you can streamline your process to be more productive. This also gives you something to measure your progress against.

Your goals should be achievable, but conducive to your overall vision. They could be set individually for each team, giving everyone something to work towards. Another approach is to set goals on a timeline. Having deadlines can keep attention focused on what needs to happen first.

Regardless of how your goals are set, they need to be actionable. It’s one thing setting your dream goals, but if they are too vague people don’t know how to action them. With explicitly clear goals that encourage tangible behaviour change, achieving your dream culture is possible.

Build A Strategy For Change

A change management strategy is crucial to transforming your culture. With a vision for the future and clearly defined goals, the next step is to craft a roadmap that helps you get there.

There are a number of factors that go in to an effective strategy:

• Set clear goals
• Create a communication plan
• Have a framework for objection handling
• Understand how to best minimise the disruption for your people
• Use learning to develop the skills of your teams in line with your goals
• Monitor the ROI of your strategy
• Involve people at all levels and help them see how they fit in to the bigger picture
• Encourage advocates for change who will help you roll it out among their peers

Embrace Communication

A culture change can be scary, for all sorts of reasons. You need to make sure that your communication is fluid. Being honest is the only way to achieve your goals and storytelling is crucial. The way you sell your vision for the future will impact the way your team feels about it. Sell a compelling vision and you will inspire your people to embrace change.

Your team are also bound to have questions. Rather than being defensive, actively listen to what they say and communicate openly and honestly. This way, you increase the trust in your relationship and reassure them that this is a positive step.

Be Transparent

Transparency is the foundation of trust. Mistrust in you, or your strategy, will result in a lack of belief in your vision. People will quickly lose trust if they are given vague information or feel like things are being hidden from them.

Being totally transparent with your team about what needs to change, why, and how you want the future to look will keep them engaged. In turn, you can implement your strategy and achieve your culture transformation objectives.

Create A Positive Work Environment

A positive working environment encourages a positive company culture. The key components include collaboration, diversity and inclusion, celebrating success, open and honest communication and autonomy.

Promoting these elements boosts productivity and engagement. This atmosphere increases creativity, innovation and optimism among your team. This supports your change strategy and boosts performance.

Lead By Example

Inspiring and motivating others is essential in leadership. The quickest way to do this is to lead by example. You can’t expect others to adopt new ways of working without changing your own behaviours.

Showing your team how and why they should take on new behaviours and processes will help them build trust. Seeing how a new approach can impact results will inspire them to do the same, contributing to a cohesive change across the organisation.

Promote Learning

Learning can play a pivotal role in a successful culture transformation.

Firstly, it can help your leaders navigate all the complexities that come with change management. Equipping your leaders with the skills to effectively handle objections can help your transition run much smoother.

Wider learning for your teams can energise them throughout the change process. With motivational modules, people are inspired and empowered to embrace new values and promote them among their peers.

Evaluate And Analyse

Monitoring the progress of your change management strategy is vital to its success. Using the goals you set at the beginning is the easiest way to measure this. Consider if everything is running to your proposed timeline, if learning is having the desired impact and what more could be done to achieve a culture transformation.

How Alchemist Can Support Your Culture Transformation

Using learning to support a culture change can hugely benefit your business. Implementing training enables skill development across your organisation. Simultaneously, you can also use learning to embed the new values and culture across the business.

Discover how a change management programme could benefit your leaders and teams – get in touch with an Alchemist today: