Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it has forced organisations to face the harsh realities of how this has affected their workforce and company culture.
This is because of employees being worried about their health and that of their loved ones, and concerns about job security. If your business is seeing a decline in company culture levels, now is the time to take action.
To better understand the current state of affairs, Cezanne HR’s company culture survey on the death of company culture, comprising 1,000 employees across the UK and Ireland being asked a series of questions covering a wide range of ages, industries, jobs functions, and company sizes.
The Effect of COVID-19 on the State of Company Culture Levels
According to the findings, 33% of the employees from the millennial generation said their company’s culture has deteriorated since the pandemic started, while 44% of employees surveyed said the pandemic had not affected their company structure.
Whereas, 29% of respondents declared that their company culture had gotten worse because of the pandemic. A potential negative impact of the pandemic would be that some companies could end up losing their dynamic with all employees being in the office.
Having to work from home may feel detrimental to some people because they strive for human interaction with colleagues.
50% of the surveyed employees revealed they believed remote working wasn’t beneficial for supporting great workplace relationships, with nearly 31% also revealing that they felt remote working was outright hurting them.
The pandemic had led to certain guidelines legislations for the companies to follow and, with remote working rules, employees could not attend the office. 63% of employees felt that the physical workplace environment was an integral aspect of workplace culture.
Additionally, 85% of people aged 54 or over felt that access to a physical place of work was vital for company culture.
How to Improve Your Company’s Culture Levels
If your company sees a decline in company culture levels, now is the time to take action.
The first step is to understand why employees are disengaged and what’s causing them to feel this way. You can conduct an employee engagement survey or hold focus groups with employees. This will help you identify the areas of your company that need improvement.
According to the findings from the survey, 26.5% of the employees think improving reward and recognition strategies would help improve the company’s culture while 20.8% believed improved mental health and wellbeing initiatives are the way to go.
Furthermore, 19.1% of employees believed that improved communication from senior leaders would help, and 18% believed that creating more opportunities for employees to interact with other colleagues would also help improve the company’s culture.
Once you know what needs to be improved, you can start taking steps to improve them. This could involve revamping your company values, introducing new initiatives, or holding team-building activities.
It’s important to remember that company culture is not a onetime thing and it will take time and effort to improve. However, it’s worth it in the long run as it will lead to happier and more engaged employees.
Conclusion
Company culture is more important than ever before and should be a top priority for organisations. Businesses need to make sure they have a stated company culture and live up to it or risk losing their top talent.
The senior management team needs to listen and understand what employees want as part of their company culture and why it matters to them. If employees feel happy within their company and are happy with their workplace environment, then this will enable companies to prevent high staff turnover rates.
