Company culture is the backbone of every organization. And it exists whether you have intentionally created it or not. Bad company culture can spread like wildfire and drain every single employee to the point of no return. Not only will this negatively impact your workforce and its labor turnover, but it will also affect your customers. If employees are demotivated and have no means of effective communication this breeds bad customer service.
Needless to say, it’s important to get your company culture right and keep it on your radar as a top priority. A faulty internal communication plan is often the cause of a shift towards a negative culture. We will go through the seven signs that alert you this is happening in your company. There are different types of negative interactions, ranging from distractive to a lack of interaction altogether, all with different solutions.
- Your Employees Are Eerily Quiet
There’s something wrong with your communication plan if no one is uttering a word to anyone else in the office. If it feels eerily quiet and meetings feel stifled when it gets to the Q&A portion, your engagement levels are in danger.
Ask yourself, are you giving people the appropriate opportunities to interact? Have you accidentally created a culture where people feel afraid of giving their opinion? Or, is your workforce made up of similar personality types? You might have employed a bunch of introverts. This can happen — it’s not uncommon for HR to seek out individuals with common traits to fit a specific job role. If you’re a content marketing agency, you might well have a group of shy writers who need a little encouragement when it comes to open communication. This subdued attitude might be good for your talent pool, but it’s a no-go when it comes to your culture.
If those creative juices aren’t flowing, little progress will be made. You need to spend some time actively persuading your workers to speak up. Perhaps you can create a segment in your weekly meetings where each attendee talks about their biggest challenge in the past seven days.
- Communication Is Too Frequent and Distracting
On the other side of the spectrum, you might have a chattering chorus every Monday morning when people should be busy getting to work. Have you created a culture where people aren’t afraid to cut themselves some slack? Has the office turned into more of a social club than a workspace?
This may have happened as a result of a highly engaged team that was given little to no direction. Remember those shy writers? This would never happen to them. But to a bunch of sales executives who all possess the gift of the gab, this is frighteningly likely.
Remember, if you have a group of extroverts on your hands, you need to direct their relentless energy to a strict schedule. These types of teams require a watchful eye to make sure that your sociable circle doesn’t become unproductive. Some organizations find it beneficial to mix teams of introverts with teams of extroverts — effectively mixing up the different departments. This means that the talkative salespeople will bring the apprehensive writers out of their shell and vice versa.
- People Seem Irritated and Restless
If people seem touchy when you approach them, something about your communication plan might be irking them. Is the software you are using ineffective? Are people slow to respond? Or, is it more to do with a misguided opinion about working hours? If people seem impatient, they might be feeling a little overstretched regarding their workload.
Remember, your management team heads your communication plan. Make sure that these figureheads are instilling positive and achievable initiatives to the rest of the workforce. Communication that is filtered down to front-end staff should be fair and considered with a bunch of encouragement in the mix. Allow your communication plan to be flexible so that the negative effects don’t spill over into your external conversations with customers. Employees that are happy, motivated and in a good mood will always represent your company better.
- Your Workforce Is Overwhelmed and Disorganized
If your company culture has turned into complete chaos, your communication plan is likely lacking any formal structure. This flaky approach to communication will soon show in the behavior of your workforce ending up in uncontrollable mayhem.
You need to make sure each team member understands their responsibilities and is accountable for their role. Creating an organizational hierarchy is a good place to start so that each person can easily approach the correct person. This type of team might benefit from a scheduling technology where shared calendars can clearly indicate who is in charge of what.
If you don’t fix this disorganized culture, your customers are likely to notice. You can quickly tell that a team is disorganized if nobody seems to have any autonomy over simple decisions. Imagine if you contacted a company to ask if you were eligible for a refund and spoke to five different workers who couldn’t tell you the answer? This spells trouble. You must sort out this lack of harmony as customers will quickly convert to your competitors instead.
- Employees Are Keen to Prove Themselves
If your employees seem defiant and defensive, you may have a glitch in your communication plan. Unfortunately, this issue could be internal or externaland so it might take some time to figure out the specific cause.
An internal issue is likely caused by a lack of recognition towards your team members. If your team members are not getting an adequate amount of praise, they may try to show you their achievements at unlikely times or get annoyed when you criticize them. This can also happen when your culture gets clogged up. If your business is going through a massive growth spurt — which is often good for profits but temporarily negative for morale — people may feel defensive about their role in the organization. With plenty of promotions up for grabs, catty behavior is not surprising.
An external issue may be caused by negative exposure or a bad marketing campaign. Companies that have a bleak public image can leave their employees feeling disheartened. Can you think of any brands where you would automatically attach a negative stereotype to their workers? This isn’t good for your internal or external customer. In this case, it might be worth reviewing your entire communication plan.
- You Don’t Easily Recognize All of Your Team
If you look around and can’t put a name to the face, this can be a sign that your team is too large or disjointed. If you spend your lunch hour wondering who is sitting next to you, it might be worth taking a look at your company structure to make some improvements. In large organizations, leaders need to be careful to instill a sense of unity as it can be easy for workers to feel alone and disconnected.
A small business is like a small fishing pond where each person has a relatively close relationship with one another. In a large company, the culture can feel like a vast ocean. This can be great when the tide is in, but sometimes your workforce will feel like they are being swallowed up in a storm.
When you review your structure, it might be worth creating further sub-divisions in your departments to develop smaller teams. It might also be a good idea to book a team building activity to encourage larger teams to engage in social interaction and to learn about each other (even if it’s just their first names).
- You Are Often Presented with Incorrect Work
If you’re receiving work that is full of mistakes on a regular basis, your communication is to blame. This is most likely due to a lack of clarity in your formal documents. Do you have a creative brief template that you give out to all of your employees? Do you have a set of rules and procedures for your staff to follow? These will need redrafting to make sure they are less vague. Any written document that is handed out to the workforce should be tailored to your business and easy to digest.
You could also consider looking at your training and development schedule. Have you told your employees about the procedures they keep getting wrong beforehand? Or were they thrust into the deep end? Training and development should be an ongoing process for every business. Unfortunately if time is short, this is often one of the first departments to take the hit.
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