Here's Why Good Company Culture Will Increase Employee Retention

BY Kathy Crosett
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If your employees are willing to take a pay cut to transition to a different job, you know you have a big problem. Part of the problem may be your need for good company culture traits. The Real Estate Witch Great Resignation Survey reveals the impact of company culture, who’s leaving, and when they are making the change.

Good Company Culture Traits

Culture is an important element of organizational life. Gary Burnison, CEO at Korn Ferry, defines culture this way: “It’s how things get done.” Leaders don’t set the culture of the company. But you can set a good example and be a role model for what you hope your culture will be. 

If you want it to be all about the respectful treatment of employees, you should be courteous in your dealings with team members as part of your employee retention strategies.Too many managers ignore the impact their bad behavior can have on other staff members. 

Our research shows that 68% of all sales reps have had to work with a toxic manager or co-​worker. These situations don’t have happy endings. The Real Estate Witch survey reported 33% of team members who left an organization last year were trying to escape a “toxic company culture.

Toxic Cultures

Does your company qualify as toxic? If your employees feel they are being harassed or verbally abused, the answer is yes. If you have been insisting that employees work overtime without asking how they’re doing, you risk losing these team members.

Too often, our culture of incivility leads to employee resignation or immediate departure. Employees with “consumer-​facing roles” may face a double whammy. First, they must deal with a bad corporate culture. And then, these employees must put up with being screamed at, insulted, and, on occasion, physically assaulted by customers. 

With these company culture examples, who can blame the employees for quickly leaving their jobs?Review your pricing and service policies and, more importantly, your employee retention strategies to improve these situations. 

Is there anything you can change to manage the unreasonable expectations of customers? If so, take action. After implementing changes, ensure your team members know you have their backs. If a guest throws food at an employee because they don’t like how it was prepared, ban that guest from your establishment.

Remember this detail — the impact of a toxic culture is so stressful that “(53%) of departing employees reported a salary decrease in their new roles.”

Hiring

While it's difficult to keep the best company culture, it's even super challenging to hire in today's environment. You'll feel pressure to make a quick decision before your favorite candidate ghosts you. But if you make the wrong hire, you might spend months trying to ease the person out of the company.

It's well worth asking candidates to take an assessment to help guide your decisions about where they'll best fit into your department or if they'll fit at all. 

Therefore, to see if someone can adapt to the culture of a company and when you need to hire a person to handle difficult customer service issues, you'll want to know if your favorite candidate possesses traits. It includes empathy, responsiveness, the desire to help others, and the ability to solve problems.

Retention

If you don’t take precautions to hire the right people for the right roles and actively manage individuals destroying the culture, you could find yourself having to cover an open position. These days, over 40% of departing employees give one week or less of notice before leaving. Nearly 13% simply stop showing up for work.

Employers who have good employee retention strategies and try to keep employees use the promise of more benefits (35%), more pay (33%), and the ability to work from home (31%) as negotiating tools. Does it work? Not so much. 

About 28% of employers promise to make cultural changes. Departing employees often feel those promises amount to "too little, too late." Not recognizing you have a problem and not committing to making a change means you'll continue to face challenges in hiring and retaining employees.

The message from this survey is clear — employees will no longer put up with a toxic workplace. The good news is there is something you can do to create good company culture traits. Start with being cautious about who you hire, as well assessing the individuals you move into management roles.

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov from Pexels


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