Company Culture Archives - wifiattendance

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

A business survives on sustainable work culture. The engagement of employees is decided by the culture you offer them in your working environment. Your employees can only see their future in your company if they feel comfortable in the company culture.

When it comes to creating and maintaining a sustainable company culture, the role of HR professionals is primary. The department of human resources has to work consistently in the right direction to maintain an effective company culture for years.

This role of HR professionals requires a lot of work and a sense of responsibility. Otherwise, things start to slip and the company loses some precious employees in the process.

Here, in this article, you will find 15 effective ways to improve company culture from the HR department. If you are working in the HR department of your company, utilize the following ways to fulfill your responsibilities:

1. Define company culture and encourage communication

A company has to first decide its sustainable culture. The leaders of a company need to find out their definition of company culture. In doing so, HR professionals can answer some critical questionsThey can help to understand the meaning of company culture.

They can recommend best-suited ways to measure them. Since they work with the people in a company, they are capable of predicting the impact of cultural change in that company. This way, HR department can assist in the process of defining a company culture.

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After defining, the same HR professionals can ensure the engagement of leaders as well as employees. They create a transparent communication environment between leaders and employees. This approach allows the whole company to achieve the desired cultural goals.

2. Serving as a culture consultant proactively

HR team shouldn’t wait for the leaders to take the initiative towards company culture. It is their job to become proactive and help executive leaders in the process.

So, the leaders of an HR department should access and evaluate the culture that the company is currently following. Using the conclusions, they should work towards developing a strategy. This strategy has to align with the goals and values of the company.

After developing a well-aligned strategy, HR professionals can discuss the plan with executive leaders. This will further enhance the quality of the available plan. The implementation process will require the involvement of the executive leaders as well as the HR professionals.

3. Involve employees in the creation process

Creating a company culture shouldn’t be a textbook strategy. You can’t take something from a seminar and apply it to create your plan for company culture. The correct approach would be to involve employees in the process.

HR department can collect feedback from the company employees. This allows a sustainable company culture development, which lasts for a long time successfully.

The culture of every company depends on a variety of factors. So, there is a uniqueness about every company and its employees. This is the reasons why employees’ involvement matter to define and implement the process of company culture development.

4. Make sustainability a company message

The company culture is not just about improving everything internally. The visibility of your company’s brand from the outside perspective should also seem sustainable. This means that your company culture should impress potential employees looking for a job.

Sustainability should be a part of your company’s message to all the candidates. This is another responsibility that HR professionals need to fulfill.

In doing so, HR professionals can welcome suggestions from the employees as well. An incentive for such employees will motivate others to indulge in the process of building a sustainable culture in the company.

5. Align multiple company goals with each other

The process of building and maintaining your company culture will require a strategic approach from the HR department. This time, HR professionals need to find ways to align multiple company goals with each other.

First of all, the HR department can consult and collaborate with the leaders. This collaboration should be about finding a connection between company’s mission, vision, core principles, values and performance management.

With that, HR should motivate leaders to integrate reward programs and recognition efforts to boost quality and productive work.

Also, HR should work as a coach for both the employees as well as the leaders.

6. Set a good example for others

The HR department can’t ignore what they preach to the employees. They should also follow the decided company strategy and culture. Even if a single person ignores and goes against the strategy, it can damage the efforts.

Almost every company has the capacity to talk good things and come up with wonderful planes. But the implementation process is the time when the leaders start expecting only employees to follow the guidelines. Which is what leads to a crumbled company culture.

7. Concentrate on the ground reality of the company culture

It might impress you on paper, but you need to ensure a positive vibe of the culture. For that, HR professionals need to actually feel the environment and talk to employees as well.

In the same approach, HR professionals should point out the potential outcomes of business decisions. Even the most senior partner can give a candid remark or idea. That is when HR professionals need to take the front and shed light on the ground reality.

8. Find company culture focal points

The HR department can work as the authority that looks at the focal points that require assessment and upgrades. A desired development of culture requires careful concentration in the correct areas.

HR professionals can find out these focal points in the work culture and find ways to motivate best practices.

9. Prevent an adverse impact on the culture

The basic idea of a sustainable company culture is that it should make sense to everyone. Every stakeholder including the managers, subordinates, customers, and others should reflect the culture in their daily behavior.

The HR department can work as a watcher of this. The professionals can prevent stakeholders from negatively impacting the defined and implemented company culture.

10. Reflect the promoted culture in every way

Every company has a core culture, which the HR department promotes internally and externally as well. However, there is no point to all this if the organizational departments and processes don’t reflect the culture.

Whether it is the people or the hiring process, everything should justify the talk of the leaders. Demonstration is the key. For instance, if a company culture promotes positivity and transparency, then, the hiring process should actually be transparent and positive.

11. Find correct people and retain them

The sustainability of a company culture depends on its people. Strategies won’t turn into realities if you don’t have the correct people. Ideas turn into action when the HR department finds the right people to hire.

They can evaluate the compatibility of candidates and collaborate with managers to hire the right ones. This protects the company culture in the long run.

12. Let company values be a part of your training process

Before new employees take the steering wheel of multiple departments, they need to be trained. Usually, new employees are trained regarding their responsibilities and work. But these new employees also take the company culture forward.

Which is why you should ensure that they get training regarding the company culture and values. HR professionals can integrate the values of the company in their training process. This will help in reinforcing and maintaining the required culture.

13. Commit and believe in the company culture

It all comes down to the commitment after a while. A culture can stay for a long time, if all associated parties believe and commit to maintaining it. This includes company executives, employees and HR professionals as well.

The commitment is a gradual process, which requires help from HR. Human resource managers need to remind every department about the goals and lead towards that mission.

14. Don’t forget about the ongoing maintenance

HR department of a company creates the structure of the culture. They analyze the landscape of the corporation and come up with a plan to establish a sustainable culture.

But the responsibilities don’t end there. The HR professionals are key to maintaining the culture on an ongoing basis. They have to work with staff and management to ensure that the existing culture stays strong.

15. Become a protector of company values

The position of HR professionals is very critical. They have the ability to bring the biggest impact on the company with their efforts. Which is why it should be their responsibility to ensure the consistency and transparency in the company values.

They don’t just define, implement and maintain a culture. It is their responsibility to advocate the values in front of the employees, executives, leaders, and other stakeholders.

With a responsible HR department, a company can build and maintain a sustainable culture. And the above-mentioned points will help you establish the desired culture in your company.

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

Working as a team is really important in any organization or business to get things done in minimal time with maximum efficiency. Even when the manager is responsible for the outcome of the project assigned to him, it is not practical for him to do everything alone.This is where ‘delegation of authority’ is important when the manager divides his tasks and power to his subordinates or team to meet the target on time.

When it comes to business organizations, delegation of authority power relates to the right of the manager to take timely decisions, give orders and allocate and utilize resources efficiently in order to accomplish the organizational objectives. Here we can have a look at how delegation of authority is beneficial to business.

1.Good collaboration among team

Delegation paves the way for open communication and trust within the team. A good collaboration among team mates helps to get the job done smoothly.

As employees get a feel that they get some space to prove themselves or make some positive changes to the organization, they feel more important. This brings out the best in them.

2. Facilitates growth and expansion

With the right use of delegation, better expansion and growth of business activities can be facilitated. You can also see flexibility in organizational structure.

With the right use of delegation, better expansion and growth of business activities can be facilitated.You can also see flexibility in organizational structure.

In fact, more layers can be added to the existing structure of organization depending on the changing requirements. This even helps to screen out employees from executive level if they are found to be less productive or inefficient in handling activities at the lower level.

3. Benefit of specialization

In a dynamic environment, specialization in certain working area can bring in success.The role of managers is to share the responsibility or authority of certain work to individuals who are specialized in that.

That person might find it really easy to do it. So managers can tactfully share the work by considering the ability and knowledge of the team mates in a particular area.

4. Develops a positive business culture

Delegation boosts the overall team morale and productivity. It also helps the company to develop a set of highly-qualified employees, who can get the job done even in manager’s absence. As the work load is reduced, everyone in the team gets enough free time which promotes a positive working ambience.

Managers should assure proper communication and support as and when needed, but give them the space to work on their own. Micromanaging the delegated tasks can in fact kill the creativity and they just become mechanical replica of your role.

5. Builds team spirit

As bonding and mutual understanding takes a high when delegation of work to a group is promoted, it helps to build good team spirit. As they can work together to achieve a common goal, team spirit will be notably high and this paves the way for better productivity.

This also means that nobody needs to work alone with their limitations as they can help each reach targets with minimal effort.

6. Option for training and development

Delegation of authority also provides a platform for managers to provide training and development to their team. The team gets hands on experience in certain work areas and this gives them a good opportunity to showcase their skills and get better out of their efficiency.

Getting a chance to make crucial decisions based on their ability and knowledge also helps them to develop their managerial efficiency.

7. Balance the workload

The key advantage of delegation is sharing the workload or responsibility with others so that managers will get some breathing space to do more productive works.

Fair distribution of work in fact enhances overall productivity as a team is working towards a common goal. Shouldering smaller responsibility with team mates help managers to focus on more important areas and decision making that affects positively in the company turn over.

They can enhance their managerial efficiency and effectiveness as they can invest more time on creative functions while sharing the routine natured works to less experienced team mates.

8. Opportunity to test employee skills

There is no better way to test the skill set of your employees. No written tests or planned practical tests can give you the actual results. Assessing how your delegates handle the role in the real life scenarios help you to assess their skills and study their limitations.

More than rating the performance, this in fact gives a room for improvement as you can arrange skill enhancement programs for your team.

Also delegation gives your team scope to analyze situations, think creatively, be more alert and become better decision makers.

9. Motivation for team

When you choose your team mate to hand over an important task, this is indirectly giving them a boost in motivation. They will get a feel that they are being recognized for their hard work and they feel important for the organization.

When he gets a feel that he is being trusted by management for higher level jobs and they rely on his abilities, it motivates him to work with better efficiency. This enables him to come out of the comfort zone and make better use of his abilities.

10. Give way for better organization

Delegation of authority can even serve as a basis when developing an organizational structure. The sharing of responsibility and authority can reflect on the number of layers that are present in an organization.

This can directly have an impact on the functioning of the enterprise and that is one main reason why management is very keen with this process.

Moreover, when work is properly shared among the right hands, top level managers can skip the direct interaction at the lower level. This helps them to shift their focus instead to organisation planning, leadership, and coordination.

11. Builds trust and understanding

This process simply means that the person in charge of some duty actually trusts someone else and their ability and reliability to get it completed on time. When you do this inside a team, this in fact leads to better understanding and trust within the process and team mates.

This is also an opportunity for managers to test the skill set of their colleagues as well as analyze their dedication and approach towards work. This helps them to make good decisions when it comes to promoting them to top levels or when allotting them a single handed project.

12. Quicker and better decision

The process of delegation can in fact help to push the decision faster and better. Even while being within the limitations, employees can make quick decisions within their specific area in a pretty quick time.

Rather than the top level managers, the employees who are working closely to the clients or field workers will have better information in hand and the decisions can be made without much effort.

They can even make better change of plans or strategies as and when the situation demands if they are given the power of decision making.

13. Gives scope for innovation

The right use of delegation of authority can also give way for more innovation. When certain individuals are given the right amount of freedom and powers, they can actually think differently and come up with interesting ideas.

Delegating the power to the right individuals can trigger innovation in the whole work space and they can contribute positive changes and out-of-the-box ideas within the organization.

Conclusion

Of course, there are some disadvantages to take care of during delegation of authority such as misuse of power, delay in execution; low quality output due to poor coordination and failure of fulfilling the tasks.

Managers must make sure that such cons are avoided in the best ways possible and get the best out of the possibilities.

With better distribution of tasks, you can get the projects completed in the least possible time frame without compromising the quality.

In fact, the quality can be improved with right allocation of resources and by getting the service of specialists in certain tasks. Moreover, it is about how you can better mould your team and maintain a positive business culture.

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

Every organization sets some major goals for a coming year or a longer period.

But goals are nothing without a pathway to reach them.

Deciding that path is called organizational planning.

This planning can focus on one department or it can cover an overall organization-wide strategy. Most companies create both kinds of organizational plans to manage business smoothly.

With strategies and planning, an organization can direct resources, energy and time in the correct direction to win relevant results. Every person in the company becomes aware of how to work and what to do, so that, the whole organization can reaches pre-decided goals.

In an overview, here is what an organizational planning does for you:

Offers a clear purpose to your organization.
Operational requirements become visible, which helps in human resourcing.
Allows a department-wide assessment of opportunities.
New ideas and innovative thinking come up.
Every staff member knows what you want from them.
A planned business approach helps in attaining a competitive edge.
All the financial resources are used in a prioritized manner.
Organization’s leaders become aware of the initially required actions.

Let’s discuss organizational planning in a detailed manner.

A purpose for the existence of an organization

A purpose is a foundational mission of an organization.

No business can survive in the long run without having a clear mission.

Organizational planning begins with the definition of mission for the business.

The purpose is not a goal. A company can have plenty of goals, but they all lead to one collective purpose.

Goals in an organization change from time to time, but the purpose of existence stays the same.

You can look at it as the one giant plan that helps in the foundation of a business. It is the first idea in the mind of a business leader that triggers the establishment of an organization. This giant plan then gets distilled and synthesized in smaller versions of missions and visions.

The purpose has to be broad and specific at the same time. The whole management level should understand the purpose.

At the same time, your employees should be able to understand the purpose and apply it to the ground level of working.

Measurable goals to define a better position

Organizational planning is expressed in the form of measurable goals. A company needs to know specific answers to what is required, where to go, how to use resources and how to manage it all. Hence, every goal should provide the opportunity to measure the results.

When planning, organizational leaders ensure the specific nature of a goal.

So, instead of saying-

“We need to grow our business in the next 5 years.”

The business leaders say-

“We need to obtain 40 percent increase in sales in the next 5 years.”

This way, the sales department knows a measurable parameter of success in the next 5 years. So, all other departments in the company can empower the sales department to reach that goal.

An organization can similarly plan goals for other departments, products, services or the whole brand.

Evaluating established goals and ongoing progress

There’s a big reason why organizational planning is called an ongoing process.

Every objective or goal defined at a time depends on the best-known information available in front of the business leaders.

An organization can surely utilize available data for future predictions. But those predictions require realistic assessments from time to time. That’s why organizational planning is important for a business.

An effective planning or strategy involves the assessment process of progress and goals. For example, a company can decide to gain 40 percent of sales growth in the coming 5 years.

But what if in first 3 years, competitors attain 30 percent sales growth. In that situation, it would be wise to rethink goals and modify for better results.

It is simple. Time clarifies the results, which helps in making better decisions. Goals are definitely important to begin the progress in the first place.

But, at the same time, organizational goals require valuable changes according to the latest knowledge. Which is why organizational planning becomes an important and ongoing process for your business.

Making decisions and strategies

Going deeper than purpose and goals, your employees need actionable work strategies. As it is important to make daily organizational functions directed to a large goal, organizational planning becomes important again.

Business leaders make decisions and decide strategies for employees in different departments. Those decisions and strategies create a responsible sense of working in the company, which leads to faster goal attainments.

Each small activity conducted on a daily basis, then, leads to larger goals and purpose attainment.

Prioritized and efficient application of resources

An organization goes through different stages of business. The availability of resources depends on the stage of an organization.

For example, a small startup usually faces a limitation of resources as compared to a well-established organization.

Resources include everything that is available for expense in a company. This includes financial resources, human resources, and business-specific resources.

Organizational planning allows leaders to identify the extent of resources available. Leaders can define how comfortable or limited the business is in terms of resources. This awareness leads to a sense of prioritization.

With planning, your business can prioritize goals and strategies with respect to the available resources. This way, your business can maximize productivity with an efficient utilization of resources.

Planning for risks and unpredictability

What if a financial crisis strikes the company?!

What if there is a sudden downfall in the market?!

There are various what-if conditions associated with all kinds of businesses. Every organization faces the risks of uncertain conditions.

Though these risks are unforeseen, your organization needs contingency planning to act as quickly as possible. Planning allows leaders to stay calm and make immediate decisions without panicking.

When there is a sudden issue in business, leaders need to fight the problem while maintaining the reputation and functions of the business.

Pre-planned approach for risks helps in applying effective strategies, so your business can tackle the changing scenarios and save the business from negative impacts.

Establishing and encouraging team spirit

With organizational planning, your employees can come together as a team and attain cooperation. An effective communication of plans and strategies allows your staff to start following the same responsibilities.

They all utilize their skills and provide assistance to help the organization collectively.

Whenever a task is assigned to a department, every member already understands what they need to do and how they can help each other.

Planning diminishes the chances of conflicts of interests. From top management to employees, everyone puts efforts to reach pre-decided targets.

Team building is key to establishing and running a successful business. No matter what you do, planning is irreplaceable from team building.

The basic idea of a team is a group of people that follow one collective goal. And that’s what organizational planning does for your employees.

Understanding and beating competition

Along with internal benefits, organizational planning also helps with competitive advantages. Sitting together, business leaders can look deeply into the weaknesses and strengths of competitors.

All major competitors are assessed. This assessment teaches a lot as their strength shows the vulnerability in your business. At the same time, your business becomes aware of in-house strengths, which can help beat the competition.

Competitor understanding also assists in finding many emerging opportunities in the market. Your business can attain new customer groups, find new markets to win and gain innovative ideas to grow steadily.

Tips on successful organizational planning

There is no set formula of organizational planning that can work for all kinds of business structure. Every business consists of different kinds of products, constraints, opportunities, and goals.

So, the actual planning differs from organization to organization. However, every business can follow a certain method of planning to attain goals and grow steadily.

Here are a few tips on building a successful organizational plan:

Assess your organizational weaknesses and strengths as compared to your major competitors. Relative understanding of weaknesses and strengths provide a realistic approach to planning.
Go through the legal weaknesses and strengths of your organization. Find all the possible options to legally tackle the disadvantages and turn them into advantages for your business.
Assess the weaknesses and strengths of each department in your business. Find the co-dependencies of departments and plan to resolve weaknesses.
Predict a growth pattern you want in a long run. Also, align this long-term plan with short-term growth strategies.
Understand current relationships in the market and plan to maintain existing relationships and building new ones.
Define an ideal number of employees in every department and compare with the current availability of human resources.
Develop a structural approach to work for a higher level of productivity and employee satisfaction.

All in all, your organization requires at every step to follow the right path to growth. Organizational planning offers a path and also tells how to walk that path efficiently.

Keeping that in mind, hopefully, now you are ready to take initial planning steps for your business.

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

If you have any experience in managing teams and running a business you would know that company culture has a big impact on business revenue and employee retention.

In 1992 a Harvard Business Study found that companies with strong culture saw a 4x greater increase in revenue and more than 12x increase in stock price.

Sometimes people may not realize it but company culture is actually at the root for every business’s success, failure, fraud, collapse or growth.

It’s no secret that happy employees lead to happy customers. This is clear in service of companies such as SouthWest Airlines and Google. A fun and safe culture also attracts new talent to the company.

Here are some ways to build a better company culture at your workplace.

Have a Purpose

You must first decide the culture that you want your company to have. Simply copying the values of other successful business will rarely work.

Your company culture comprises your values, beliefs, purpose and philosophy in serving others. The company culture is almost always a reflection of its founding members and should be as unique as each human being is.

Think of the kind of atmosphere and working style you want in your office. A small start up will naturally have its founder’s culture but will require conscious effort as the team grows bigger.

Use stories

Use stories and brand ambassadors within your company to propagate values. These stories could be of founders or top level employees.

Personalities such as Richard Branson (Virgin brand) and Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.) are an inspiration in themselves. They form a major part of the brand they have built.

Not every company will have a popular personality to influence its culture. Even everyday stories by frontline employees or action on social media can be used to reinforce values and build culture.

Hire Right

Zappos the online shoe seller is loved for its company culture and customer service. Did you know that Zappos gives cultural fit a 50% weightage when hiring an employee!

That means a candidate with impressive skill sets could still get rejected because he is not right for the culture of the company.

Culture is made up of people and stories, so it makes sense to protect it from getting corrupted. It is possible to teach a skill set but it is much harder to change a person’s attitude and belief systems.

Always hire people who add to your culture and share your sense of purpose. Hiring employees who have conflicting values is quick way to turn your culture toxic.

Encourage right culture

It is also important to encourage the right behaviours after hiring the right employees. Make sure your awards and recognition reflect your values.

Take the example of Publix Super Markets, the largest employee owned company in United States. They offer their employees company stock after a year of service and additional stocks each year promoting the culture of inclusiveness and ownership.

As a result their turnover rate is as low as 5% and profits are more than that of Wal-Mart.

Have zero tolerance for breaches

What you stand against is as important as what you stand for in building a strong culture. Make clear that behaviours and practices against the company’s values will not be tolerated.

Have a written code of conduct and policy that reflects your culture clearly.

Rewards and punishments are noticed by employees and travel through the grapevine quickly. It is an effective way to keep your company culture in check.

Sum Up

94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success. Company culture does require time and effort but it is well worth the effort.

In fact, it is impossible to have a sustainable long running business without a strong culture.

Building a culture starts with having a purpose, hiring right people and nurturing it daily. Company culture will evolve as the business grows and next generation of workers are hired.

However, the core of the business and its essence must always be preserved and reflect in everything the company does.