A sustainable culture in the workplace is the key to the success of any business. It determines how engaged your employees are and how likely you are to hold on to them. It is an important goal of any human resources (HR) professional to create a sustainable culture that can align the company’s vision with that of the employees.
If HR professionals understand their role in developing a sustainable culture in the organization, it creates an environment that employees find productive and exciting.
The HR team can help build a sustainable culture within any organization if they pay attention to certain key aspects, including the following.
Be proactive
Any professional in the HR industry needs to understand the company’s current culture and develop a strategic plan aligned with its values and goals. It involves a collaborative effort where the HR teams must work with other executive leaders to develop a sustainable culture plan.
Communicate and Define
It is crucial to have clear definitions of what a sustainable culture is, how it will be measured, and how it will affect the workforce. Once the basic structure is established, the HR execs must involve all the stakeholders at every level of conversation. A transparent environment improves the engagement of the workforce and the leaders. As an HR professional, it is your responsibility to ensure that every stakeholder develops a sense of ownership in achieving the cultural plan’s goal.
Align recruitment with your objectives
It is crucial to understand that the people you hire today and how you hire them greatly impact the development of the company culture. HR should inculcate hiring practices that align with the organization’s core values and principles to generate an inclusive work environment.
Some of the ways it can be done include-
- Being very careful while writing job descriptions
- Blind hiring techniques while shortlisting candidates
- Tracking the diversity of the hires
- Ensuring the internships being offered are targeted
A sustainable culture that attracts a qualified workforce can be a huge plus for the company’s overall standing.
Think of sustainability
While building a sustainable culture in any organization, the HR departments want to get buy-in from the prospective employees before they join the workforce. To ensure this, the message of sustainability in the organization should be front and center, especially for candidates to whom this is very important. Many HR departments also offer incentives to employees who suggest ways to improve the sustainability of the workplace culture.
Focus on learning and development
It is the need of the hour to develop an adaptable and forward-thinking workforce. A workplace culture that encourages employees to enhance their skill sets can greatly enhance the outcome. As a professional in the HR industry, you should try to champion professional learning by.
- Investing in the professional qualification and accreditation of the employees
- Setting up mentoring programs with specific goals in mind
- Encouraging interaction and learning between teams
A workplace culture that promotes the professional development of the workforce beckons success for any organization.
Use strategic rewards
Making the employees feel valued is one of the biggest achievements of a sustainable workplace culture. Having strategic reward programs is a step in the right direction. A few ways such programs can be implemented include allowing an annual bursary for every employee to be spent on their projects or improving their professional knowledge base.
One of the best examples in this regard is Google. The company has a sustainable culture that revolves around high performance. Google is known to offer on-the-spot rewards for a job well done to its employees. It’s no wonder that 86% of Google employees are happy with their jobs.
HR can build a sustainable culture that can drive the productivity and profitability of any organization. The human resource department is in a unique position to shape the culture of their companies and play a pivotal role in making the company successful and fulfilling for the employees.