Business Operations (Capturing Culture - Part 4)

View Part One

This is the last big piece to your cultural puzzle, and it's all about trust. Without trust, your staff is going to have the hardest time getting over the tiniest of hurdles. This means lost business and low morale.

Now it's important to note that each business is unique. They all have their own set of practices and methods, which impacts the culture in a variety of different ways. Fortunately, despite this, there are several that remain prevalent from business to business. These universal business operations are...

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Overtime / Technology / Types of Products and Services

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Once you understand how these 3 business operations influence a culture, you'll be able to spot others within your firm, study their governance over employees' attitudes, and start to build a culture around them.

Overtime

I'll start by saying it's rare for a company to culturally define their stance on overtime. However, the ones that do, are thankful they did, and here's why... Trust. You see, nothing causes friction like a team split between working late or calling it a day.

Let's say worker A's assignment is connected to worker B's task and the culture is overtime-centric (work until the job is done). It's reduces so much stress to know that employee B won't leave until their portion is done. This also goes the other way too. If employee A and employee B both value leaving when their schedules end, they'll do the best they can to complete the task efficiently.

Now the truth is, understanding a company's view on overtime doesn't just build trust between employees. When properly defined and enforced, it also used to build trust between the staff and the company. Some people absolutely value a strong work/life balance and others don't mind spending the night at the office. Knowing that your company respects whichever stance you have, absolutely makes the staff feel more fulfilled. And conversely, when there's a misalignment, everyone suffers - upset employee and poor quality of work.

It's truly unfortunate that overtime is so often overlooked because it has such a profound impact on the staff's day-to-day emotions. Good thing you found this article.

Bonus - Screening for Overtime

More often than not, companies that do define their stance on overtime, usually do a terrible job screening candidates to ensure his/her views align. Because of this, I've put together a quick little article, highlighting some important steps you can take in the interview process. This way you won't face any of the issues brought up earlier. You can check it out here.

Suggested Follow-ups:

Part 4 of the Capturing Culture series (continued) Business Operations - Technology's Impact By: Tom Kieley Current Readers

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Article By: Tom Kieley

About the Author

Tom is the creator of Fulfillingly. He absolutely enjoys giving people the tips and tools they need to find a satisfying career or dependable employee. Tom does
this by combining years of experience with incredible outside sources.

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