It is not unknown to anyone that a positive work culture can help to retain more employees while improving their performance. However, most organizations are not aware of how to measure it, like the other metrics of sales, profit, and revenue. Industry leaders must consider work culture as an important metric for business that is as important as revenue.
When it comes to work culture, sadly, not everyone is still seen or valued at a company. In a majority of cases, historically marginalized groups and women are still shunned or treated with toxic behavior from their reporting managers as well as colleagues. A workplace is not intentionally built to include all kinds of people; the patterns of micro-aggression or non-inclusive behaviors can be witnessed across all industries. While a lot of people consider it to be small and subtle incidents that can be ignored, the cumulative effect of the constant devaluation can deeply hamper the career trajectory for women and minority groups. This can be flagged as the lowest point for a company where employees and their future are suffering.
The loss for the company can be measured by the loss of talented people. However, there is still hope due to the expectations of the younger generation and the labor shortage. The younger employees and workers these days are no longer willing to complete impossible workloads, as it can lead to burnout and ultimately damage a person. The modern and young workers are not only working for money, but they also want to know the bigger purpose of their work. They are more focused on “human sustainability,” where employee retention and human capital should be top priority, just like efficiency and performance.
How to Measure Work Culture Like a Business Outcome?
In order to measure work culture for a company, you need to focus on the key areas related to your human resources.
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Retention Rate is a Key Metric
This is a very obvious metric that is often overlooked by most companies. It is the main indicator for a decaying work culture where employees no longer want to work. Some of the main driving factors are a lack of feeling validated, supported, or heard, burnout of different departments, limited options for career growth and personal development, etc, to name some. Addressing the issues head-on can help to improve work culture exponentially.
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Audit of Workloads
Addressing burnout among employees is one of the most difficult tasks, and auditing workloads could be the way to do it. Find out whether you are putting too much workload on a single employee or not. Are the non-promotable tasks being disproportionately assigned to marginalized employees and women? Audit workloads can help to match the job profile with the job seekers, and a better match can cause less burnout.
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Focus on How Employees Work
Even if your company has a top performer in sales, that person can also cause lost talent and reduce overall productivity and profits for the company. It is highly important to balance talented management with performance reviews. Instead of rewarding the best performer, also reward the employees for their conduct with others, behavior, and communication skills. It is time to recognize that employees possess a lot of empathy, actively trying to learn something new, or making a ‘culture’ in a department.
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Support for Middle Manager
Managers are one of the biggest parts of employee experience, and they need better tools and training to lead their teams effectively without any discrimination or cultivating a toxic workplace culture.
Employees want to work in a place that is actually built for them and where they can work respectfully, along with equality in all layers of the hierarchy.
