If you are the CEO or owner of a company that has stagnated, or has been on a downward spiral for a while, it can be difficult to turn around its fortunes and to change the culture of the workplace into a more productive and effective one. There are a number of ways in which you can change the culture of a workplace, from changing your hiring and firing policies, investing in workplace training for groups and individuals, and engaging more thoroughly with all of your employees.

The culture in a workplace can be very difficult to change. Whether practices are good are bad, once they are ingrained it trickles down from the top to bottom, and even new staff will soon be following the processes that they witness first hand from colleagues and management.  You can follow a few steps to make the transition to a more positive working culture, or to implement certain practices that you think will benefit the company in the long-term.

Understand the Individual

You have the responsibility of the changing the entire organisation of course, but in order to make any company change work you have to rely on the individual members of staff. To implement real change at a core level you have to understand that it is easy to make a change in the short-term, but that to make it a sustainable cultural work change you have to continuously work with the individual in mind, and how it will impact on each persons working habit.

Tweak Your Hiring and Firing Policies

There will be employees at your company that are making it difficult to implement the changes you see fit. Working out which parts of the company need to be trimmed to be more effective, and weeding out the problematic individuals takes time, and is a delicate matter. Long term you have to move towards a hiring policy where everyone is on the same page, from the person starting their first day at work to those who have been in management for years.

Improve Engagement

Employees just want to be heard. Put together a streamlined plan of open and honest lines of communication so that all staff members understand that they can voice their opinions in a safe way. Also ensure that you give your employees the chance to put forward their opinions in a way that does have a genuine impact on future plans.

Specific Training and Goals

It is important to put together both short-term and long-term goals. Combine this forward thinking with specific training programmes to make the workforce understand and clearly see the finish line. If staff members can see an attainable short-term goal in front of them, and that training will help them get there, they will be happy to undertake more personal development work and in turn be more productive and effective with the way they work.

If you can get everyone pulling in the same direction, a cultural change in the workplace is achievable, and a turnaround in fortunes for your company will come with it in time.