by Amy Mills
I’m a big believer in the power of healthy organizational culture. Culturally-fit organizations are consistently more successful in fulfilling their missions and achieving their goals because their employees are more adaptable and engaged in their work. But healthy culture doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of an intentional, inclusive process and consistent focus over time.
Creating and maintaining a healthy culture within your organization is not necessarily about implementing large-scale changes, so I wanted to share three small but mighty things that any organization can do, starting right now, to help strengthen their organizational culture:
1. Core Values Cinema! At your staff meetings, ask someone to show a short (2-minutes or less) video from YouTube that conveys one of your core values and explain the connection. It’s a fun way to deepen everyone’s connection to the core values.
2. Add a description of your culture to your job postings. Make sure that when you list the required skills and experience, you also advertise the “personality” of the organization – it will help you attract people who fit better from the very beginning.
3. Start measuring employee engagement. We use the Gallup Q12 tool, available from Gallup for a pretty affordable rate. Check it out here!
If you like these three ideas, you’re in luck because we’ve created a two-day seminar called Great Culture, Great Results: Building Healthy Organizations from the Inside to help animal welfare leaders create a space to start this intentional process. The seminar will help leaders learn the building blocks of a healthy culture as well as the processes for culture change. We hope to see you there this November 2-3!
