Middle Managers are key to employee culture

Culture plays a critical role in nurturing a healthy environment for employees in our workplaces. Culture can be defined as the beliefs, behaviors, and interactions between individuals and teams. As leaders, communicating in ways that uphold a healthy culture have large impacts on these factors over time. This includes setting clear expectations, removing barriers, and integrating well-being goals into team objectives.

There are cultural values, and cultural norms. Company values are a set of ideals the group strives to live up to, and “walk-the-walk” on. Values should be used as part of decision making processes. How values are operationalized and part of employee’s everyday world, or how folks respond and work together are the cultural norms.

While 92% of executives believe that improving their firm’s culture would increase the value of their company, only 16% of these executives believe that their own firm’s culture is where it needs to be.”

Journal of Financial Economics, 2022

When it comes to walking-the-walk of culture, although there is top-level leadership support and espousing of the company values, many are highly aware of the translation gap between the values on a page and the day-to-day embodiment. This is in part due to lack of values-integration through employee incentives and rewards programs. How is individual performance measured for example, or what % of values-aligned behaviors is part of an employees annual review?

Tension in business demands, negatively impacts team culture

In the same research, the two main factors hindering effective culture were lack of leadership time and investment, and failure to adapt or manage change – culture lags behind the business. In my experience, as changes are implemented there is little attention on the long-range and phased impacts on employees, norms and communication. There is also a palpable gap between meeting business and investor demands, and investing in the softer side of culture and long-range sustainable business performance. Results are wanted in-quarter or in-year, and other initiatives with longer or harder to measure performance are lower on the list for senior leadership – in part due to how their compensation is tied to stock performance and the average tenure of c-suite execs is around four years.

73% of executives agree or strongly agree that corporate polices work against the culture.”

Journal of Financial Economics, 2022

Middle Managers are key to employee experience

Research studies consistently show that Managers have the greatest impact on employee well-being and retention. According to Gallup, managers have the greatest impact on employee engagement, with 70% of a team’s engagement influenced by their manager. In contrast, only 42% of managers say they feel “completely” empowered and capable of helping their company achieve its well-being commitments.

A quick, observable litmus test for your team’s unspoken culture is how often folks are asking each other for help and candid feedback. This shows a willingness to not know the answer to something, to be in a state of learning and frankly showing some vulnerability due to fear of social threat. How is seeking or giving help to another rewarded on your team?

the four pillars of healthy cultures

One of the key responsibilities of managers is to create a positive work environment for their employees. In order to achieve this, managers must focus on generating positive employee experiences and reducing stress at work. This includes setting clear expectations, removing barriers, facilitating collaboration, and ensuring that employees feel fully supported to do their best work. When managers prioritize these responsibilities, they can help to prevent employee burnout and create a culture of well-being within their teams. If you’re feeling overwhelmed yet, you are not alone.

In recent interview, on the podcast the Anxious Achiever, Morra Aarons-Mele interviewed Anthony Sartori on a set of five connected areas that help demystify where to start that make up a people-first culture. The biggest takeaway: 20 minutes weekly where the team intentionally focuses on workplace wellbeing, with mutual skill-building. Foster connection, create space for appreciation, share gratitude, talk about symptoms of burnout, discuss resilience – carve out the space and consider his five topics:

1. Use the US Surgeon General’s Mental Health at Work Model as a Leadership Tool
2. Mental Health Surveys using the framework from Mental Health of America
3. Work Culture Learning on Mindfulness – focus, self-awareness, empathy
4. Resilience Skill Building – Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Curiosity, Peace and Love
5. Worker Sustainability, ideally led by a Culture of Resiliency Team

If this feels like too much to dig into right this second, I feel ya. I plan to follow up with deep dives into each of these five things – I’m sharing now as it was a bit of an “aha!” for me to see how all of these existing pieces can be used as a leader to spark dialog.

Looking for a place to start this week? Consider helping your team Reconnect to their Purpose.