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
Win-Win for All
Your staff may be suffering in silence, working solely for the experience that accompanies the opportunity to work for an elite training barn. Spending the day surrounded by horses, traveling to high-level competitions, and learning the secrets of the trade beat a desk job just about every day. The satisfaction of a big win or breakthrough with a horse often outweighs the grueling hours, the unpredictability of horse training, and missed family holidays.
Above all else, what keeps people satisfied as long-term employees is knowing they work in an environment where their viewpoints are valued (and sought out) and their well-being is important to the boss.
“Companies are discovering when they invite everyone to participate in the building of a great company and share in the rewards, both the company and the people profit more,” Blakeman said.
Read the rest of this article at the links above.
