A change in business culture

Published: April 4, 2019

The last four years have been extremely difficult for Alberta business owners. Faced with more economic uncertainty than we have experienced in more than thirty years, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on businesses to survive. With increased costs of purchased goods, a soft Canadian dollar and a dwindling workforce, some changes will be required for businesses to remain relevant in our unpredictable environment. Changes outside of initial standard cost reduction like reducing staff, reducing wages or even reducing inventory. We may have to change the way we look at business altogether.

We may not have created these problems. We are going to have to deal with them in order to survive.

With all these pressures stacked on top of us, we can sometimes forget about one very important part of our business. Our employees. How do we retain them? How do we keep them happy? Better yet, how do we encourage them to help us. If you were to pick one that you believed would help your business and improved it by 1% every day it would be 37% better by the end of the year. Now imagine if every employee was to do this as well.

One upside, if there is one, from the past four years is that is has allowed businesses to strengthen their core or base group of employees. With greatly diminished turnover rates, after any initial downsizing, companies can benefit from the increased tribal knowledge of their core group of employees. This generally results in slightly reduced rework, increased profitability and potentially a lowered incident rate. Are these enough to offset any increased costs or loss of revenue? Will they last?

So now we have a group of hard-working people who come to work every day. How can we get them more involved? How do we help them help us?

One of the easiest ways, and yet seemingly the hardest for people to wrap their heads around, is creating win-win situations. To some, this seems like a mythical creature, yet they are everywhere around our businesses. The reason they seem so elusive is perspective.

If your corporate culture does not fully embrace change or support open communication, there is probably a huge perspective difference between management and other employees. We would all like to believe that our organizations have the best culture. I mean you have put your life’s work into this. Just to make sure though there are some questions you can ask yourself.

• When was the last time an employee suggested to change something for the betterment of the company?
• Have you had an employee come to you offering a solution to a problem rather than just complaining to you that there is a problem?
• Have you ever walked through the shop or office and noticed that something had changed without you knowing that there was a plan to change it?

Here is an even easier one

• Were the dishes done and the tables cleaned off in the lunchroom the last time you went in there?

If you had to take time to think about these answers, then chances are there is at least a little culture change required. The good news is that these elusive win-win situations will not just get you closer to being 1% better tomorrow, they will also help improve your corporate culture.

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