The culture of your business has nothing to do with museums or world travel. It’s all about how you treat your employees and how they feel about working for you.
By Katie Navarra
Have you ever thought about how former or current employees talk about what it’s like to work at your barn? Do they say they’re fulfilled or is each day a grueling grin-and-bear-it existence until another opportunity comes along?
Whether it’s positive or negative, how your employees feel at work impacts their ability to perform. Nurturing a positive workplace culture improves morale and productivity and ultimately helps your barn achieve the next level of success.
Nearly 60% of employees have left a job or are thinking about leaving because of a bad boss, according to a survey by Randstad US. While inadequate pay and benefits were among top-ranked reasons for leaving a job, many workers reported leaving because of negative experiences and a poor workplace culture—factors you can improve with better leadership.
Turnover is costly. Every time you hire a new employee, you invest time and resources into teaching them the ropes. Being short-staffed can make it difficult to accomplish the daily chores until someone new can be hired and trained. The unexpected loss because of a poor working environment is something that can be avoided. And if word gets on the street that the status of working at your barn isn’t worth the discomfort, it’ll became harder and harder to find good staff.
Culture is everything; it’s not something you add, according to Chuck Blakeman, CEO of Crankset Group. Blakeman has consulted with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other widely recognized companies teaching leaders the importance of culture.
We’ll cover six aspects of workplace culture in this article.
Part 1: What Is Workplace Culture?
Part 3: Communicate What’s Happening
Part 4: Empower Employees to Make Decisions
Communicate What’s Happening
No one likes a secret. Secrecy fosters distrust and skepticism. When employees are in the dark about what’s going on with the business—good or bad—it creates an uncomfortable working environment.
Share the goals you have for each horse, for yourself, and the business as a whole. Provide regular updates on the progress toward those benchmarks. You may not want to share your full financial goals, but quantify what you’re comfortable sharing to get more buy in from your employees. For example, if you want to increase your number of non pro clients from 10 to 15, communicate how you’ll do it and your progress.
Don’t be afraid to ask staff, and ask them often, how they feel about the work environment. Offer an anonymous method for providing feedback so they feel they can be honest without fear of losing their job. This is challenging for barns with a staff of one person. In those situations, schedule weekly, monthly, or quarterly meetings with time for open dialogue. And as the boss, be authentic in hearing what your staff has to say. It’s not always easy to acknowledge a weakness, and not everything can be changed or “fixed,” but committing to listening and communicating goes a long way.
Read the rest of this article at the links above.
