How to Reimagine Your Corporate Culture

Have you noticed? Corporate culture has become the #1 player for dynamic success and growth. There’s a good reason for that – it influences everything, all the way to the bottom line.

There are two main factors causing this surge in interest:

1. The high-profile growth and fiscal success of high-tech companies that make culture a high priority.

2. The increasing number of employees who are searching out ‘meaningful work’ today.

How important is culture in a property management company? As we’ll explain below, a property management company’s success (or lack of it) depends on its culture.

What’s that about pensions?

It’s hard to believe that people once stayed put in their company and waited to retire with a pension. It requires more than a financial incentive to keep good employees today – if your company is to thrive, it needs the happiness incentive.

The Happiness Incentive

Your employees are your corporate culture. Their happiness – or lack of it – is what makes up your corporate vibe. What's the corporate vibe? It's that feeling you get when you walk through the door, like it or not. It’s the same feeling your clients and customers get when they interact with you. If your employees enjoy their job and the people they work with, your customers and residents will feel it.

What’s more, if your employees are happy working at your company they’ll go the extra mile to move it forward.

"Your employees are your corporate culture -- they make or break your company.

Happy employees feel invested in their company, so it only makes sense to cultivate a positive, empowering experience for them.

What makes for happy employees? Psychology 101 teaches that when people feel empowered – when they’re given the tools and opportunity to implement their ideas – they’re happier people. It also teaches that we all have an innate need to grow and that we’ll only be happy if we’re fulfilling that need.

So, what can you offer that will attract and retain employees? Let’s go beyond the trendy free snacks and consider opportunities that will make you a “Best Place to Work”, a company that continues to thrive it forward.

Career Growth

Let’s start with what we consider to be the obvious – career growth. A report from IBM found that professionals who felt that they could not meet their career goals at their current organization were twelve times more likely to consider a job switch than employees who felt they could meet their goals.

Considering that replacing an employee can cost up to twice as much as keeping one (Gallup), that’s a serious problem.

Beyond the negative consequences, consider how exciting it will be if you’re empowering and educating your employees. This means they’re constantly refining and upping their goals, and taking on more … they’re moving to their next level, being replaced by others who were doing the same.

When you think about it, the importance of corporate culture becomes so obvious you’ll wonder why America is only just now getting onboard. It’s something we here at Reimagine Property Management have always taken seriously, so we have decades of proof behind our enthusiasm.

How to Transform Culture

Let’s look at the systematic steps you can take to transform your culture.

Define What You Want

Your first step is to clearly define your desired culture. This will include the values, behaviors, and attitudes that align with the organization's vision and goals.

Once you understand who you are and what you stand for, you can make all decisions through that lens, decisions that don’t take you off course. You can read more about that here. Just be sure you don’t do this alone.

Employee Involvement

Your culture transformation process should include everyone in your company. Encourage employee involvement by seeking their ideas, suggestions, and feedback throughout this process.

Establish cross-functional teams or committees to drive your new initiatives, ensuring diverse representation from various departments and levels within the organization. This will create a sense of ownership and accountability for the cultural changes.

Once you’ve defined your desired culture, communicate your vision consistently and make it accessible to all employees so they can understand, embrace, and contribute to the cultural transformation.

Lead by Example

Leading by example can be the sticky wicket of culture transformation: the leaders, who may well be in an ivory tower, absolutely must act as role models for other employees. There’s no way around it – if the leaders don’t consistently demonstrate the values and behaviors they expect from others then transformation won’t happen.

What to do if your leaders don’t know how to do this – or aren’t comfortable doing it? Consider executive level training. Reimagine Property Management Consulting CEO Ryan Kirby can work with your executives to bring them into the corporate culture, so they feel comfortable in the role of model.

Employees who are leaders can inspire and motivate employees to embrace the change, but that’s just the beginning. This process will also encourage new perspectives in your leadership team. It can break down hierarchical barriers and encourage open communication. Done right, it will foster a sense of transparency and trust within the organization.

People Over Things

Let’s be honest – the norm today is one where people are most often concerned with their own advancement, and that can lead to an unhealthy culture. RPM has a great solution we call People Over Things.

People Over Things shifts employee perspective from “what am I getting out of this” to “how do I contribute to this other person”. It requires significant staff training so that employees understand the long-term personal benefit, but it’s well worth it because it creates an exciting, vibrant culture that more than pays for itself.

When employees change their perspective to include others, they begin to ask new questions. Are they typically spending time in meetings, for example, that only include top management? If they answer yes, they can see that their lens is wrong because they’re not hearing the people on the ground … and possibly not even asking for their input.

Our “best of the best” approach is very effective for getting input from all levels. With this approach executives talk with the “best of the best” of each position group. This allows them to get real time feedback and chase problems down to their roots. Not only is this a practical solution, it allows people at all levels to be a part of the solution. So, people at ‘lower levels’ are now involved in changing the company … how great (and committed) does that make them feel?

Leaders Creating Leaders

Empowered employees will transform your company, and one of our favorite mentoring initiatives is Leaders Creating Leaders. Everyone benefits from a mentor, and when mentorship is alive and well in an organization the entire company is growing and evolving. Evolving and helping each other, that is. So there are mentors at each level, with each one helping others up to where they are … as they themselves are being mentored up to their next level.

Celebrate Growth & Progress

We advocate for going above and beyond recognition apps and stock celebrations. When you give employees personal, meaningful recognition they truly feel acknowledged and appreciated. This not only motivates them but also reinforces the values and behaviors associated with the transformed culture.

Create Community

Do you sponsor monthly outings that employees can enjoy? These might be sports like volleyball, bowling, or hiking or they could be a happy hour at a local pub. Scheduling various outings that are appropriate for different types of employees will make them feel acknowledged and create an environment of community.

Evolve!

There’s nothing static about corporate culture. Like it or not, it’s always changing, so you need to continuously assess and adapt. Of course, this means you need to be very aware of what’s going on. Create a plan to regularly measure and evaluate progress. This can include getting feedback from employees and monitoring key cultural indicators. Use your insights to refine your strategies and keep your culture evolving.

Excellence rarely occurs by accident. When you’re defining the culture you want, leading by example, empowering employees, putting people over things, and creating leaders, you create the Happiness Incentive that will transform your entire company. It’s become clear that if you do it successfully you will dominate their market. Even better, you’ll have a great time doing it.

Want to Learn More?

Reimagine Property Management consulting services can help you take your company to the next level. That’s because we combine our decades of experience with our intuitive approach to help you reimagine a company you’ll love. Give us a call.