Jobhop Jobhop's blog : 7 Telling Signs That Your Company Culture Is Damaging

It seems everyone is talking about “company culture” these days but why should you worry yourself about it?

It’s not as if you’re not busy enough already, there are deadlines to meet, production is down, recruitment is a headache, money is tight, you haven’t got the time for a hocus pocus, woo woo, buzz word. But it’s not a buzz word, the term corporate culture was being used in the business world in the late 1980's, it’s now evolved into the term company culture driven by the many tech start-ups who's culture is different from the corporate world. “So what,” you say, you don’t care if the word has been around for hundreds of years because you still haven’t got the time or the money to worry yourself about any company culture malarky, but you don’t need to worry because you’ve already got a company culture. There’s a problem because you’ve never concerned yourself with the company culture, it just took a life of its own, like a fungus!

Your company culture is damaging!

Your company culture is damaging the workplace, your employees, productivity, turnover, customers and much more.

What are the signs? The signs are all there, but you’ve probably been so caught up in chasing your tail that you’re oblivious to them. Perhaps you’ve seen the signs and thought that if you buried your head in the sand, it would eventually sort itself out, sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but if you don’t act now it will just get worse! Only when you acknowledge the signs, can you start improving the company culture.

In case you’ve missed the signs, here they are:

Regular absenteeism

Especially on Monday mornings! Everyone is always ill on a Monday; it makes you ill just thinking about Monday’s. Also, whenever there’s a big sports event a high percentage of your workforce call in sick and the same happens the day after bank holiday Monday.

Pass the buck

Everyone is at it, an order goes missing, the answer is always “it wasn’t their department it must be the other department.” A sale falls through when you ask “why?” you just get a list of people who’s fault it is, no-one is bothered about solving anything they’re just concerned about passing the buck and saving their backsides. No wonder why your employees don’t want to come in on a Monday morning, who wants to work in a blame culture?

Gossip mongers

No one ever wants to feel that other people are talking about them, it’s not nice. Gossip mongers will tend to gossip about anything; it’s not just love triangles. If someone gets a promotion, they’ll find the negatives about it, and they’ll tell anyone who will listen why they think they shouldn’t have got the promotion. If anyone buys a new car they’ll gossip about that, and how much it cost, the same applies to a holiday, a house, even new clothes, they just can’t help themselves; they love to gossip. Gossiping is a complete waste of energy and very damaging.

Customer complaints

How comes there are so many customer complaints? Employees are frightened to call customers because they know they’re not going to be happy. It’s one thing after another, deliveries don’t turn up, no-one called them back, they were kept waiting for hours, someone was rude to them, the list goes on. When your customers are unhappy it brings down the employees who are left to sort out the mess; it brings down the employees who are the first to answer their call, it also brings down the community manager who has to try to get them to stop tweeting negative things about the company. That’s a lot of unhappy people!

Productivity is down

Because many employees are unhappy, many are off sick, and the regular few are spending their time gossiping, productivity is down, are you surprised? When productivity is down, the core root has to be investigated, you can’t just stick a plaster on it and hope it will get better, it won’t.

Retaining employees is a nightmare

It’s a bit like revolving doors at your company, you offer someone a job, as soon as you do someone else leaves, it's never ending. You don’t bother learning their names anymore because you know they won't be there for long!

Recruitment is a nightmare

Perhaps your situation is even worse, more are leaving through the door than coming in through the other door! Recruitment is costly, the recruitment agent never has anyone, the expensive advert gets lots of CVs sent, but quantity beats quality, and you waste so much time sifting through them.

Wake up; it’s time to act!

Go back to the root, find out your “why” and get the company culture sorted!

Begin creating a positive, contagious company culture today!

JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.

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