I happened upon an interesting white paper that discussed the importance of workplace culture. Culture and environmental factors in the workplace are hot topics these days – almost to the point that they have become simple buzz words that get thrown around without much consideration as to what is truly meant. However, if you give some thought as to how important good employees are to the overall success of a company, understanding what motivates and supports them by what is said, felt, and done in the workplace is imperative.
Here’s a little excerpt by Michelle Maldonado from American Public University whose interview of Tatiana Sehring provides some insightful thoughts on the matter:
“Q: Based on your experience, what are some of the key drivers of change that leaders should consider?
Tatiana: Over the last few years, we’ve begun to see leaders speaking more openly about their leadership styles. They have sparked conversation with new approaches like conscious capitalism. This and other key changes have come from great leadership, vision and culture that serve to empower, develop, believe, care for, and ultimately inspire employees. Some of these more visible leaders understand that when you intrinsically motivate people in a way that aligns a person’s purpose, passion and skillset with an organization’s vision, strategy and needs, it can have a significant impact on an organization’s viability and sustainability. In fact, employee-satisfaction surveys reinforce that the integration of soft skills and abilities such as authentic leadership development in the workplace can significantly impact profits. There are multiple industry studies that continue to report significant gaps in developing leadership, soft skill, and technical competencies. Conversely, many companies are successfully taking organizational performance to the next level by incorporating these universal, core development components into their cultures, values and missions, and are showing a positive return on investment. There’s a great report that the Human Capital Institute and MHS published last year called, Leadership and Emotional Intelligence: The Keys to Driving ROI and Organizational Performance. Their research shows that organizations that spend more than 31% of their annual training and development budget specifically on leadership development are 12% more likely to report increased revenue. There’s also a 31% gap in leadership development effectiveness between organizations where emotional intelligence is valued. This data demonstrates the need for companies to consistently emphasize, integrate and support leadership development across organizational settings. There are also emerging considerations for culture transformation today taking the main stage in highly successful corporations such as mindfulness and authentic leadership. These are valuable tools that organizations can use to help motivate employees which, ultimately, contribute to sustained organizational success. In February 2014, Time Magazine featured a cover story, The Mindful Revolution, which explores how to focus in a society in which we’re being pulled in many different directions. What’s refreshing and much needed are that these considerations are becoming mainstream conversations. Leaders are making the direct correlation between people investment and higher employee and organizational performance through the balanced integration of learning and development. They’re incorporating emotional intelligence, mindful leadership techniques and other soft skills throughout the entire employee life cycle. That’s really the bottom line, no pun intended. (Laughing)”
To download the entire white paper with additional thoughts visit:
http://www.hr.com/en/resources/free_whitepapers/higher-vision-higher-calling_if4flpdm.html