In 2024, the employee experience is something world-class service companies will be focusing on, and you can do it, too. First, you must improve company culture, which most companies struggle with. Culture is everything. Culture impacts everything you do as a business, internally and externally.
What is culture at all? Culture is defined as the way of life of a group of people, which means that people like us behave like this.
There is no other way to define culture. As a litmus test, answer this question: What is it like to work for your company? Whatever answer you come up with, that is your culture. The thing about culture is that it is always happening whether you work on it or not. Culture is a strategic and systemic agenda.
Most companies make the mistake of focusing on the strategy, not the systemic aspects. And that is why most companies struggle to build a great culture. Strategy is all talk; building systems are the actions and behaviors that lead to bringing the strategy to life. A famous quote by Peter Drucker says culture eats strategy for breakfast. Without continuous efforts to build a great culture, your strategic actions will be in vain.
People develop and sustain a culture. Everyone in your company builds the culture; from top-down to bottom-up, everyone contributes. Culture shouldn't be something leadership sits in a room trying to create but a collective effort by everyone in the organization. When everyone contributes to the culture, it brings clarity and confidence.
As stated above, culture means people like us do stuff like this. That is clarity. There is clarity as to the expectations required to work at your company.
Then there is confidence. When everyone works in the same direction for a common purpose, it becomes a morale booster as everyone confidently understands their roles in the mission. As a leader, that is huge when you don't have to worry about what is happening, bringing a sense of calm, control, and peace of mind.
Nothing is more fulfilling as a leader than knowing that your team understands the mission and is actively working for the greater of the cause and mission with high efficiency and commitment. Improving culture is the ultimate productivity hack.
Happy employees work harder, but most importantly, they are more willing to ensure the job gets done, and you need that as a company aspiring to be customer-centric.
You need your employees to own the experience at every interaction, surprising and delighting the customer at every stage of the experience. A great culture builds autonomy. Something you cannot teach; it comes naturally through repetitive actions born out of culture. Building your culture is non-negotiable if you want to become a world-class service company.
Culture is the glue that connects your people to the mission and the community. Every business exists to serve a community; if you still need to consider this, your team is a community.
What happens in the internal community appears in the external community, building a reputation, good or bad. Your reputation-building starts with your culture at the community at the internal level. And over a long period, that reputation becomes your brand because that is what you become known for internally and externally.
Culture defines the brand. Culture builds the brand. Culture is your brand.
Your culture is the glue that keeps the people in your communities, internally and externally, together. There is no separation between your brand's internal and external reputation in your communities because your culture determines that organically or by design.
As you work on elevating the customer experience, you cannot afford to focus on just customers. The employee experience dictates the overall experience, and it starts with culture. And your culture plays a more significant role in your overall brand reputation and awareness than you think. You rely on people as a business wanting to deliver a consistently great customer experience. Take care of the people a little better; they will take great care of your customers, elevating your brand's reputation and awareness in the community. Next week, we shall look at part 2 on how to actually build a great culture.