As organizational structures become more complex and expand globally, the need to establish a positive climate is increasingly critical to employee satisfaction and productivity levels. Employees in large organizations today often work on multiple teams and report to a variety of managers that likely span across several countries and departments.
Research has pointed to rising employee frustrations with their organizational climate over the past few years. Employee frustration can often stem from a lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities or concerns about departmental inter-connectedness. Consider these facts:
To address these daunting concerns, HR must do a better job of arming line managers – those who truly set the climate – with tools and processes that help them flag problems and better understand their role in eliminating frustrations that lead to turnover and a drain in productivity.
There are six dimensions to determining whether your organizational climate is set up for success with keeping employees motivated and engaged:
To successfully implement these dimensions, HR must take on the role of a “strategic climate partner,” helping line managers create positive environments to retain employees. To do this, HR must help line managers understand three important points:
It will take practice and ongoing feedback in order to institute changes in management style, especially in times of high stress where it is easy to revert back to old behaviors. However, effective HR managers will stay involved and invested until line managers understand their role, recognize negative behaviors, and implement the correct processes for positive change.
We’ve found that organizations that ingrain these practices will significantly increase employee motivation and productivity, retain top employees and improve bottom-line performance by up to 30 percent. As the war for talent continues across industries and organizations, a positive climate will become ever-more important for organizational success.
What tools do you use to establish a positive climate? How can organizations standardize other processes?