Culture Wars: Driving a Positive Change in your Corporate Culture

It may be 10 months or 10 years since starting your company, but somewhere along either that short or longer road you have come to realize the culture that distinguishes your business isn’t up to par with your vision and expectations.

Defined by the values and practices shared across-the-board by staff, company culture is essentially the manner in which an organization exhibits behavior. And while every company culture contains some elements of uniqueness, all have two basic qualities – character and personality.

Company character is a reflection of the commitment and engagement employees have to an organization’s value system; company character becomes evident in numerous areas, including customer responsiveness, innovation, team interaction and daily job performance.

Company personality is somewhat less tangible, presenting itself in the attitude and tone exhibited by employees. As examples, some organizations are known for their open and friendly aura while others are best described as competitive. One is not necessarily better than the other; businesses can have a successful personality if built upon the right character foundation.

Be advised – if you’re looking to re-define your company’s culture, it won’t happen overnight. Certain steps must be carefully taken in order to build a high performance culture.

First, identify the results you want to achieve. How do you want your company to be perceived? Isolate the potential obstacles that might impede your company culture vision and work toward their elimination while establishing the strengths upon which you can build right now.

It’s vital to clearly communicate your plan. Make sure your entire executive team and all employees understand your vision, and then seek their feedback. This important information will help, not hinder culture creation.

Build a rewards structure that reflects your culture model, including mission, values, strategy, roles and expectations and then foster that structure to best advantage.

High performance cultures can translate into company value that can exceed that of competitors and often even your own expectations. But this cannot occur in the absence of commitment and engagement from everyone within your organization – starting at the top with you.


About our Benefits Installment Author:

James E. (Jim) Moniz, CEO of Northeast VisionLink, a Massachusetts firm that specializes in structuring executive compensation. James E. Moniz is a national speaker on the topic of wealth management and on executive compensation. Jim Moniz will be presenting at this years SHRM conference in Phoenx, be sure to check out our presentation: “Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage, The Role and Impact of Effective Compensation and Rewards Strategies”

The Peak Interview

A friend and associate, Bill Burnett, has just published a book.

The Peak Interview


New insights into the job interview process can give you an edge to win the interview and get the job. By the time you get to the job interview, the company has determined you are qualified for the job. But so are all the other interviewees. Your experience, skills, competencies, and abilities will not differentiate you. Your competition is just as qualified as you are. You need an edge.



The Peak Interview talks about how to create that edge using Nobel Prize winning insights.

Read more about this small book at: Superinnovator

About the author:
With more than thirty years of business experience, Bill Burnett is a problem solver and a proven leader. He has led both line organizations larger than 250 people, and staff groups with less than ten people. Burnett's special talent is his ability to recognize and leverage hidden inventiveness of knowledgeably internal employees. His track record of building and leading problem solving teams at both the global and local level has delivered ingenious performance improvements in Product Development,Business Models, Customer Service, Operations, Network Infrastructure, Systems Functionality, and Policy Management. Burnett has traveled to and worked with a multitude of cultures in local businesses in over sixty-five countries.

New HR-Meter Website Launch!

Dear Readers,

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new HR-Meter website! We've upgraded every page to include more information about relevant HR related topics. In addition, the website is now easier to use. All of the HR related topics that HR-Meter is involved in are listed on the left hand side of the website. Just follow the topics you're interested in and you'll most likely find what you're looking for. We've also added a download center where you can find up-to-date resources on a wide variety of topics.

Here's a list of the topics you'll find on www.hr-meter.com:

• 360 Degree Feedback
• Leadership Development
• Business Process Analysis
• Assessments for Managers
• Succession Planning
• Performance Appraisal
• High Potentials
• Organizational Culture
• Team Metrics
• Employee Engagement
• Customer Satisfaction
• Knowledge and Training
• Job Marketing
• Career Websites
• Candidate Assessment
• Webcam Interviewing
• Test and Tool Development

We hope you like what you find!

All the best,

HR-Meter

Creating a culture of employee “ownership mentality”: Part II

Last month we took a general look at measures to establish that all-important culture of employee “ownership mentality;” one that once created can help impel a business to greater success.

Now, let’s see how compensation structure impacts that desired ownership mentality, beginning with short-term incentives.

Essentially, short-term incentives are performance measured and typically paid out in 12 months or less. These incentives can play a large role in engendering an employee’s sense of “investment” in an organization if they are based on the achievement of certain departmental goals and/or hitting a profitability threshold.

Most companies utilizing short-term incentive components as part of an overall “ownership” approach will “weight” the incentive based upon a tier system. As such, tiers are established for different classes of employees in conjunction with their impact on various performance measures.

For example, incentive for Tier 1 or top level management is usually based on company performance, not department or individual contribution. Incentives for Tier 3 or 4 employees, however, are heavily weighted on team and individual performance, and hardly at all on overall company achievement. The objective with both tiers is to create focus and tie incentives to specific goals that the employee is best positioned to help meet – in other words, allowing an employee to feel engaged and invested in the workplace, which translates into that coveted ownership mentality.

Long-term incentives, which can include shares of stock, stock options, phantom stock, a profit pool or incentive deferred compensation, are designed for top talent retention.

Key among the intentions of long-term incentives is to create a focus on attaining the company’s long term financial goals and engender a sense of “investment” in those goals.

Long-term incentives provide a substantive reason for top talent to both join and stay with a company. Attractive inducements can “reel them in” and likewise maintain star employees.

Sustained growth and hitting those important goal milestones occurs when key employees are motivated to focus on performance, leading to execution and a pattern of continued achievement – in the long run, a win-win for both the company and its employees.

About our Benefits Installment Author:

James E. (Jim) Moniz, CEO of Northeast VisionLink, a Massachusetts firm that specializes in structuring executive compensation. James E. Moniz is a national speaker on the topic of wealth management and on executive compensation. Jim Moniz will be presenting at this years SHRM conference in Phoenx, be sure to check out our presentation: “Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage, The Role and Impact of Effective Compensation and Rewards Strategies”

Do your employees know where they stand?

Sure... right? We do our annual reviews. We sit down with our employees and we say, "good job with this or that" or "we'd like to see some improvment on your TPS reports". Of course our employees know where they stand.

Ok, and if I were to ask you, say, "what percentage of your employees is uncertain about their job security?" or perhaps something a little more specific like, "what percentage of your employees thought they were on the right track for a promotion right up until they didn't get one?" and "how did not getting that promotion affect their performance?", "did they start looking for another job?", "do they think you care?". You might say something like, "I'm not sure. But, more importantly, I'm not sure it matters"... and I'd believe you. And you'd have to also give me that your employees don't know where they stand; that you don't know where your employees stand; that maybe you don't know where you stand.

It starts to look somewhat amazing that the company functions. Of course, if you were to ask around, folks would say, "ahh, but we are such a dysfunctional, uncooperative, catty, bunch." He knows it, she knows it, I know it and you know it.

If you're a mamanager, start scheduling some time, right now, for each memeber of you team to come in and talk to you about "things". Maybe type up and distribute a little survey and put a box outside your door or cube or tent. Make it a "check yes or no" survey and pass it out. Get some feedback. Ask your team if they want to do a little survey too. Ask HR if you can do a big survey. Ask HR to ask if you can do a really really big survey. Ask some questions.

Creating a Culture That Encourages Employees to Think Like Owners: Part 1

January Installment by Jim Moniz:

Success now and in the future – let’s face it; that’s the ultimate goal of any business owner. But to achieve that vision of a “bigger and better” organization, you first have to identify a few key elements for success and then make sure that your staff possesses the appropriate ownership mentality to assist in both your short and long term objectives.

Fundamental to any growth strategy are three factors: fulfilling your original business plan (mission, values and company vision); the emergence of sustainable growth patterns (revenue development); and a suitable return in capital for company shareholders.

In order to best achieve those elements for growth, employees must be on board – and the most direct line to meet that aim is by fostering a culture of employee ownership. In other words, employees have to draw the same conclusions as you about what’s important, but for that to occur, ownership mentality must be personalized.

Most employees recognize the bottom line to a company’s success is well…the bottom line; but it’s also vital that they understand how their contribution will help to make that happen. Without this important engagement on the part of employees, their focus may be off center.

That engagement occurs when an employee not only appreciates the unique talents he brings to the organization but recognizes that those skills are also appreciated by management. And that is accomplished by utilizing and amplifying those special talents to allow the employee to find meaning in his work and create a framework for both his and the company’s success. The coveted ownership mentality occurs when the employee sees that connection between his and the company’s goals.

It all boils down to employees embracing the fundamental elements of understanding, importance, contribution and connection.

But a few well-placed “atta boys” aren’t going to fully engender ownership mentality. Motivation comes in many forms, including a regular and attainable incentive program designed not as an employee entitlement, but as a means to create engagement and ownership.

A sound incentive plan – which includes both short and long term motivations – always connects the dots between performance and results. It can best be described as a conditional payment in exchange for meeting specific performance standards.

Next month we’ll break down the differences between short and long term incentives and the role each plays in creating and maintaining that all important ownership mentality.


About our Benefits Installment Author:

James E. (Jim) Moniz, CEO of Northeast VisionLink, a Massachusetts firm that specializes in structuring executive compensation. James E. Moniz is a national speaker on the topic of wealth management and on executive compensation.

Jim Moniz will be presenting at this years SHRM conference in Phoenx, be sure to check out our presentation: “Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Advantage, The Role and Impact of Effective Compensation and Rewards Strategies”

...and We're Back!

Woah! Forgive us our dust, rust, decay and delay!

We've been away but now we're back! In the last month, our IT department at HR-Meter has been extremely busy working on a brand new website for HR-Meter! It's taken up so much of our time that HR-Worldview, our humble blog, has seen some neglect! That's about to change.

Now that we're just putting the finishing touches on HR-Meter's new website, it's time to turn our attention back to this here blog.

So, without further ado, let's get 2010 off to an, albeit late, start!

All the best,
Your HR-Meter / HR-Worldview Team