Shaping workplace culture - also in employee appraisals

What a year it has been. The measures to combat COVID-19 have cost the vast majority of organizations a great deal of energy. Despite all the online meetings, the quality of face-to-face communication has been different to what we would have liked and were used to. And now the year-end and target agreement meetings are about to follow. Especially in these stressful times, it is important to meet as equals and discuss what and how a person can contribute to the added value of an organization. It is less about how best to achieve goals set from above and more about how employees' skills and competencies can best be used to implement the mission and strategy.

In the sense of such empowerment, employees are given room to maneuver as well as being encouraged to take on responsibility and implement their ideas. And then it is about being able to let go, because people are self-determined beings and no one can be forced to be happy.

The pressure to make people happy

I am often asked by organizations and managers what they could do to increase employee job satisfaction. An anecdote from my psychology internship at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich more than 15 years ago always comes to mind. Back then, in a quiet minute, the head physician at my internship gave me a few thoughts on suboptimal relationship patterns. One theme was that it is not possible for anyone to make other people happy if they are not willing to do so of their own accord. Although people often expect other people to make them happy, this assumption never works. In relationships, you can only create the framework conditions so that other people can grow. No more, but also no less. To put it another way and to hear it said: "The grass doesn't grow faster if you pull on it" or "You can lead the horses to the water trough, they have to drink themselves".

At some point in the course of my work, I realized that the same reasoning also applies to the relationship between managers and employees (or for Great Place To Work consultants and customer organizations 12). However, this also means that a manager or an organization can take away the pressure of having to or being able to make their own employees happy. The decision as to whether one wants to be happy or is on the path to happiness begins in each person's head. However, the decision of employees to create their own Great Place To Work can be supported by the organization and managers through the appropriate design factors.

Three design factors for a great place to work

The Great Place To Work studies show that employees are committed to their workplace if they can help define their own contribution based on their skills and abilities. This results in a higher innovation rate and various value creation potentials (e.g. a lower fluctuation and absence rate, higher commitment and intrinsic motivation as well as higher sales growth and improved profitability). This employee potential is realized when the values of an organization are lived out in daily interaction within the framework of a culture of trust and the strategy is communicated at the appropriate level. And that requires three things.

First condition: A workplace culture of trust

Trust is the most important basis for positive and resilient relationships between employees within an organization. Employees trust each other if they perceive each other as credible, respectful and fair in their dealings. In addition, team spirit and pride in one's own work activities have a strong influence on the creation of a workplace culture of trust. Team spirit without trust in managers leads to an "us versus them" mentality. Similarly, pride in one's own work activity degenerates into a consolation prize in a culture of mistrust because people want to share the meaningfulness of their own work activity with other people. A workplace culture of trust is therefore the basis for employees to even think about their own contribution to an organization's value creation.

Second condition: Lived values

The values of an organization serve as an orientation for employees as to what is desirable behavior in daily interaction and beyond. As artefacts, they are not just contained on beautifully designed documents, wall posters and an organization's career website, but also guide daily work and decision-making behaviour. Ideally, the values support the implementation of the strategy by highlighting and supporting the corresponding behavior of employees.

The values of an organization then also show the normative framework conditions on the basis of which an employee's own contribution can be aligned - in other words, HOW something is to be done. This value-oriented perspective is becoming more important as part of the workplace culture because organizations are increasingly confronted with their stakeholders' expectations of meaningfulness, transparency and the perception of their social responsibility.

Third condition: Leadership quality

In the context of workplace culture, leadership is understood as a comprehensive phenomenon and can be perceived hierarchically, functionally and situationally. It is important that managers act as role models and thus exemplify the desired characteristics of an organization. This mainly takes place in social relationships with all employees by ensuring that they are respectful, appreciative and fair. Another important point is that managers are able to communicate the organizational strategy coherently and in a way that is appropriate for the target group. This transparency and clarity enables employees in every position and function to think about what their own contribution to the organization's goals is. In other words, it is about WHAT needs to be done. This definition of their own contribution to achieving the organizational goals increases the perceived meaningfulness of employees' work activities. It becomes clear why every person in an organization is needed to achieve the strategic goals (or not). Because even the most beautiful clock stands still if one cog in the clockwork is missing.

Being able to think of a Great Place To Work

If you bring together the culture of trust, the values practiced and the quality of leadership, it becomes clear why these should be addressed in a year-end or target agreement meeting: They set the foundation for an open discourse on the "how - values" and "what - strategy/leadership" with regard to shaping employees' own contribution. On this basis, employees can create their own Great Place To Work. Managers can be available to employees as coaches or mentors during this process. However, the decision to accept this meaningful challenge and set out on the path to their own Great Place To Work is made by the employees themselves.