5 Steps to Build Trust and Change the Culture in an Organization
Paul Juniper, Director, Queen's IRC, 2014
How do you change the culture in a workplace where workers don't trust the leaders, where employees are not engaged, and where people just don't care about doing their jobs? A few months ago, I was speaking to a group of senior leaders and the topic of changing culture and increasing employee engagement came up. The conversation started innocuously, with a comment like, “There's too many potholes in the road and you can't get people, whose job it is to fill potholes, to care.”
“Why do you think that the workers don't care?” I asked. “How does management behave?” We had talked earlier about the importance of mission, vision, values and behaviours – and the one we didn't get to was behaviours. Every organization has a mission and a vision, and most of us have values like honesty and integrity. But often in the workplace, what you actually see demonstrated is dishonesty and lack of integrity. Is it any wonder why the employees are not engaged?
As our conversation continued, there was disbelief that it was possible to change a culture, particularly from one very senior person who works in the public sector. She was fascinated. She said, “Can you really change a culture?”
Business Intelligence, Big Data, and HR
Ian Turnbull, BA, MBA, Laird & Greer Management Group, 2015
Our people are our most important asset, or so we hear, so data about those people – workers, or employees, if you prefer – should be central to our organization’s total data set! To understand where HR data fits, you first have to understand your organization’s overall data management strategy. How is data collected, organized, and managed? And how do you analyze that data to obtain information?
“Business Intelligence”, the idea of transforming raw data into useful and actionable information, has become an oft-discussed concept. It allows management to gain historical insight and to produce predictive analytics for competitive advantage. And Business Intelligence arises directly from “Big Data”, the process of bringing together raw data from multiple data sources into a single analytical tool. That tool can be used by management to produce Business Intelligence.
The next time that you use Google, or some other search engine, do a search for some unusual item; something that you haven’t searched for before. Then spend some time on sites that you visit often.
You will notice that ads related to the unusual item will pop up beside your search results for the more common items. That is Big Data at work in a marketing context. Google has picked up your first search and is now displaying pages that its algorithm predicts will be of interest to you based on that search. And Google (and other providers) charge advertisers for this. It is the core of their economic model.
Is Your Workplace in Motion? Exploring the New Employee, the New Work, and the New Workplace
Brenda Barker Scott, Workplace in Motion Summit Chair, 2015
Do you encourage collaboration between departments?
Are you ready for a changing demographic in your workforce?
Do you know how technology will change your organization in the future?
This past spring, Queen's IRC hosted a summit to explore our workplaces in motion. We thought of our summit as a discovery space. We invited people to come together to reflect, share and re-imagine how their workplaces could become more transparent, integrated and inspiring. Through an old world – new world lens, we explored how four inter-related trends (see model) are shaping the new employee, the new work, and the new workplace.
Our lofty aim was to reveal how the workplace principles and frameworks that worked in the past no longer serve us. While we all appreciate that the era of centralized governing systems and rigid hierarchies is over, many of the legacy principles are so deeply engrained, we simply do not see or question them. Our task was to surface the principles that no longer serve us, and define a new set of workplace fundamentals promoting connectivity, innovation and adaptability.
In service of keeping those conversations going, we offer our old world-new world models as a starting place for you to ponder the future of your workplaces. As you reflect on each of the three models (the new employee, the new work, the new workplace), gather your colleagues together and answer the questions in the box below. We've employed a technique called reverse brainstorming to surface the organizational practices and systems that may, inadvertently, be rooting your organization in the past.
The Queen's IRC Sales & Marketing team is conducting a survey in an effort to better understand the professional development needs of HR and LR professionals.
This survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. For your time, you will be eligible to enter a draw for one of six $50 Starbucks or Tim Hortons gift cards.
Your feedback is very important to us. We thank you in advance for taking the time to complete the survey.
For an overview of our professional development training, from the perspective of our participants and speakers, please check out our Queen’s IRC Video.
Copyright 2016 Queen’s University IRC, Robert Sutherland Hall, 138 Union Street, Kingston, ON K7L 2P1
Call 1-888-858-7838 | Email IRC@QueensU.ca | Visit us online at irc.queensu.ca
How do you change the culture in a workplace where workers don't trust the leaders, where employees are not engaged, and where people just don't care about doing their jobs? A few months ago, I was speaking to a group of senior leaders and the topic of changing culture and increasing employee engagement came up. The conversation started innocuously, with a comment like, “There's too many potholes in the road and you can't get people, whose job it is to fill potholes, to care.”
Our people are our most important asset, or so we hear, so data about those people – workers, or employees, if you prefer – should be central to our organization’s total data set! To understand where HR data fits, you first have to understand your organization’s overall data management strategy. How is data collected, organized, and managed? And how do you analyze that data to obtain information?
Do you encourage collaboration between departments?
The Queen's IRC Sales & Marketing team is conducting a survey in an effort to better understand the professional development needs of HR and LR professionals.
