This is the final post in my series on voluntary turnover. I started by exploring the costs of voluntary employee turnover (which is at least six figures annually for most organizations), and then I gave you two posts about starting to solve the problem: (1) covering the basics of salaries, technology, and conflict, and (2) going a little deeper by focusing on key elements of employee engagement (people-centric customization, strategic clarity and involvement, and top-down transparency).
Those two sets of solutions are important (and you can start on them right away), but they are designed to stem the tide, not truly solve the problem. If you want to permanently solve the voluntary turnover problem, then you need to go deeper and address your underlying culture patterns.
Cultures are like fingerprints: every one is unique, yet they all have similar-looking patterns. We have found consistently that when you can see the underlying culture patterns in your culture, you will be able to identify the areas where the culture is off, where the it’s driving behaviors that are getting in your way or slowing you down. Once you identify those priority trouble spots, you can make targeted changes to the way you run things in order to generate new behaviors that will fix the problems.
Here’s a simple example. You want more cross-functional collaboration, and your department heads all heartily agree, yet the departments still don’t work well together and projects are frequently over budget or behind schedule. We call this pattern “awkward collaboration” where collaborative individuals are valued more than collaborative groups, and it frequently slows things down and frustrates employees. The good news is, you can fix it! You just need to make some targeted changes, like getting everyone on the same project management tool so people have more visibility into what other departments are working on, or creating a monthly meeting of middle managers to troubleshoot projects that are falling behind schedule. Once those changes are implemented, you will start to see faster progress and fewer project setbacks. Your people will be less frustrated, thus less likely to leave. Yes, it’s that simple.
We call this work culture design, and if you want to reduce turnover, you should be doing it on a regular basis. There are three basic components to culture design:
See your patterns. Here’s where you get under the surface of your culture and identify the contradictions or competing commitments that are neutralizing the culture you’ve been trying to achieve. Our culture assessment will show you your patterns in detail, though culture assessments, by definition, are a heavy lift (since you have to survey everyone), so we also have a free “culture pattern quiz” if you want to get a high level snapshot. And even if you don’t use an assessment, just get some of your colleagues around the table and talk about it. Look for areas where your performance is falling short and it’s not obvious why. Frequently, there is a culture pattern at play.
Write up your playbook. Once you’ve prioritized which patterns to work on, design some culture change action steps, which we call “plays” in a playbook. A play simply involves doing things in a new or changed way in order to change behaviors inside your organization that will address your problematic culture patterns and make your people more successful (as in the example above where new meetings and a new project management tool moved the needle).
Manage the plays. They you implement. This requires basic project management skills, but you also want to make sure you balance both short-term and long-term plays, because that will help you sustain momentum for the culture change. You’ll also want to periodically measure whether or not your culture change efforts are actually changing behaviors (and if those behaviors are generating better results). But this stage is ultimately about putting one front in front of the other. Way too many leaders talk the talk of culture change, but then don’t walk the walk.
For every culture pattern that you fix, you’ll have more engaged employees. You’ll have better results. You’ll be one step closer to having employees that simply can’t imagine working anywhere else. That, by the way, is what we hear from employees with incredibly strong cultures. Follow the steps I’ve laid out in this and my previous posts, and you can get there (and start pocketing that $100,000 plus per year you’ve been losing to turnover costs).
Reach out if you want to learn more about culture design.