DEVELOPING AND SUSTAINING A HIGH PERFORMANCE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE << Back to News  

By Peter P. Fornal

June, 2002

Introduction

In today's rapidly changing world, those organizations that develop and sustain a culture of excellence and performance will survive and prosper. Critical to that success is the HR professional who as a partner in the firm must be an effective leader of change. This White Paper defines the factors that are critical to a high performance culture and outlines the role HR must play in that process.

What is Culture?

The glue that binds an organization together is often described as culture. It is the collection of values, beliefs, symbols and norms that the organization follows and that define what it is and how it does business each and every day. Significant drivers of culture are discussed in this paper.

Drivers of Organizational Culture

In the past, change was less frequent and slow to impact an organization. In the 21st century, change is a way of life impacted continuously by technology, a global economy and the information age. The characteristics of today's workforce are also changing dramatically and the human resource professional must assume as never before the role of caretaker and change agent of corporate culture. The challenge is immense and directly links to organizational performance and survival. What, then, must the human resource professional do to fulfill his/her role in the 21st century?

Be a Partner on the Leadership Team

Human resources must be a partner in the leadership of an organization and help senior management understand their critical role in defining and successfully implementing the vision, mission, strategic and tactical plans of the organization. This requires HR to be very proactive in understanding and supporting every aspect of operations, finance and customer service. HR must be mentor, coach, counselor and advocate as required. Weak leaders must be strengthened or replaced and the leadership team must be imbued with a passion for their beliefs and more importantly encouraged to practice those beliefs daily; namely, walk the talk. HR must encourage leaders to have continuous contact with employees directly and indirectly through constant oral and written communications.

Be a Role Model for the Organization

Since culture begins in the sourcing process and continues through selection and orientation, HR must stand tall and all HR professionals must practice the organization's beliefs. Aristotle wrote, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit." All of HR must lead by example.

Reinforce Values

Values must be practiced and constantly reinforced through communications. The value system must be easily understood and accepted by all employees. This becomes especially challenging in the 21st century in view of changing demographics, generational differences and diversity. HR professionals must understand their role as the champions of values despite continuous workforce and operational change.

Most importantly, they must ensure that organizational ethics are defined, understood and practiced. As a role model and catalyst for values and ethics, the HR professional should establish systems to promote and encourage these principles throughout the organization. The process begins with sourcing, includes training and orientation and rewards and recognition. This process must be monitored constantly.

Enable Two-Way Communications and Feedback Channels

Essential to establishing and sustaining culture, its values and dimensions is effective two-way communications. Culture is fragile and is threatened daily by change, innuendo and perceptions. Reinforcement of values and goals must be constant and HR must remain vigilant that all is well and that the foundation for culture is solid. This requires listening through feedback mechanisms and constant measurement. Monitoring results should be an integral part of HR's regular operational reviews. The results should lead to proactive reinforcement steps rather than defensive actions. Make communications assessments a cornerstone of your HR program.

Define Roles, Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Often said but poorly practiced, roles and responsibilities must be clearly established and more importantly tied directly to the critical success factors of an organization. Without clear definitions, effectiveness suffers. More importantly, people must understand why all of their duties are important. Therefore, regular feedback on performance and direct linkage to rewards and compensation are critical. While stated simply, these goals are not easy to establish and maintain.

Provide Continuous Learning and Training

Organizations must provide for and support continuous learning. Study after study of successful organizations highlights their commitment and support of continuous learning. It is part of their value system and supported financially. The best organizations voice the commitment to learning in the interview process and carry it out through an employee's career. Development of an ongoing training assessment system tied to workforce planning is critical to identifying training needs and planning the actions required to implement it. Examples of organizations that manage this process well are FedEx, Fidelity and Motorola.

Sustain Reward and Recognition Systems

Maslow identified recognition as a major factor in human behavior and so it is with creating and sustaining a winning culture. Recognition systems must be well established and implemented. These systems require careful development to link the right reward with the accomplishment. In addition, continuous communications of recognition must occur so that employees both perceive and accept the system as fair and buy into it. This is especially challenging when geographical, cultural and demographic differences exist. (See White Paper on "Virtual Recognition" for key suggestions.) Best-in-Class organizations and Baldrige winners excel at employee recognition.

Encourage Empowerment and Teams

Every successful leader assembles a great team and empowers that team. Empowerment is successful when leaders support employees and teams with all the tools required to succeed--authority, budget, tools, personal and political support as well as reinforcement.

Empowerment as a word is found in many vision, mission, and values statements, but as a fundamental driver of organizational culture, it must be practiced and supported. This means that leaders understand the empowerment process and build it into the very fiber of day-to-day activity.

Promote a Customer-Supplier Work Environment

Great lessons can be learned from organizations that promote an internal customer-focused culture. The benefits of such a culture are legion and are often manifested in those organizations that have received the Baldrige or Best-in-Class industry awards. Such cultures sustain a team environment where employees not only recognize their dual role as customer and supplier but also are encouraged and rewarded to do so. Expectations are clear and constantly reinforced.

Recognize and Solve Individual and Organizational Problems and Issues

People problems and issues will arise; it is inevitable when humans work together. Those organizations that have a clearly communicated policy, have trained supervisors and HR professionals to execute it and have effective systems for quick problem resolution are usually the most profitable and high-performing organizations. To be effective, your organization must be adept at problem resolution. Issues that remain unresolved fester and lead to poor morale and performance, turnover and eventually litigation. As caretaker of corporate culture, HR must establish and maintain an effective problem resolution system as a foundation for positive culture.

Develop an Organizational Plan and Constantly Tweak It

In summary, as the caretaker of corporate culture, human resources must:

Fully understand the organization's mission, vision, culture, strategic and tactical plans, markets and services and the forces expected to impact them.

Eliminate the business-as-usual mentality and develop, with the help of other stakeholders, a detailed human resources plan for managing your workforce during the next three-five years.

Recognize that the keys to the implementation of a successful plan are: it cannot remain static, it must be constantly monitored and changed, it must be reinforced with effective two-way communications and will only succeed if the workforce is empowered to participate in its formulation, evolution, measurement and success.

Dr. Deming, the father of modern quality, said, "If it isn't worth measuring, it isn't worth doing." Your plan must be measured so that you can report and share progress with all constituents.

In summary, HR is the caretaker of organizational culture. To fulfill its obligations, HR must continuously improve its own education and skills, put a human resources plan together, engage all stakeholders and monitor and adjust to changing times. Above all, HR must be true to and exemplify cultural values.

Thanks to Peter P. Fornal, President of Human Resource Consultants in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, for contributing this paper. Pete has held executive positions in HR management for four Fortune 500 companies, including Motorola and Hasbro. He is Chair of the SHRM Employee and Labor Relations Committee.

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