Developing a Company Culture Driven by Commitment
Regardless of the size of your company, your success will to some degree depend on your ability to establish a healthy and trusting relationship with your employees. Whether you have two employees, 200, or 2,000, you will have to communicate the values that align with your company vision. Simultaneously, you will have to ensure those who represent your leadership agree and communicate your values. The strategy you use, of course, will be different based on the size and structure of your organization.
You may be wondering how important this is. Good question. Brad Bird, Animator and Director at Pixar for many years said this: the ROI of a workplace with a low morale is .25 on the dollar. The ROI of a workplace with a high morale is $3 on the dollar. That is a huge difference!
Today, many leaders are relying on surveys to determine how employees really feel. It doesn’t work because employees know surveys are not anonymous, and most people are not going to jeopardize their jobs by telling their employer how they really feel. The more micromanagement there is in the organization, the less useful will be the information you can expect from surveys.
A better way to understand job satisfaction is by looking at both the rate of turnover and level of engagement. A word of caution about turnover and engagement. Turnover is a less reliable source because people will stay in a workplace for various reasons, such a cost of leaving and available opportunities. Engagement, however, is a better gauge. The type and level of engagement can be great indicators of workplace satisfaction, although there must be a distinction made between compliance and commitment. In other words, people will comply to maintain their job, where their level of commitment is what drives superior performance that results in increased profitability.
The question is, how does an employer build commitment that results in healthy engagement with employees? He does so by creating an environment of trust, based on justice and fairness for all. An employer creates an environment of trust by delivering on distributive, procedural, and interactional justices. Let’s take a brief look at each of the three justices.
Distributive justice is the system an employer uses to distribute rewards and punishments. Is it fair and equitable? Procedural justice refers to the fairness of procedures used in the actual allocation of rewards and punishments. Are rewards and punishments meted out fairly across the board? Interactional justice refers to the truthfulness, respect and dignity communicated between management representatives and employees under their control.
The more employees perceive they work in a fair and just workplace that respects them and employs honorable and good values, the more those employees will be willing to commit to the goals and objectives of their employer.