Page 186 - Retaining Top Employees

McKeown10.qxd 4/13/02 8:51 AM Page 174

174 Retaining Top Employees

• What about parking spaces and cafeteria seating? Is
everything rigidly hierarchical or is the atmosphere more
casual and collegial?
These and a hundred other indicators constitute the organi-
zation’s culture. It’s part of your job to ensure that your employ-
ees understand and work with that culture.
This is actually an extension of the manager’s responsibility
(discussed in the preceding chapter) to convey enough about
the organization’s culture to ensure that new employees are
able to fit in well and make a quick start. Here we’re discussing
the responsibility of the manager for ensuring that employees
understand and comply with the organization’s culture.

How to Do It
So how do you ensure that your employees are aligned with the
organization’s mission, values, and culture? You can’t really call
in each of your employees for a regular “culture checkup,” so
here are some tips on managing the culture compliance issue
more diplomatically:
1. Discuss values early, before hiring if possible. Most top
performers can adapt to an organization’s mission and
culture, but are less flexible when it comes to values that
don’t correlate with their own.

Think Compliance
Some managers are uncomfortable with the word “compli-
ance” in such matters as mission,values,and culture.To them
the word smacks of heavy-handed,authoritarian attitudes. Fair enough.
If you don’t like the word,feel free to substitute another of your own
choosing,such as “understanding” or “alignment.”
But in my experience organizations that are serious about achieving
their mission using their values and with their culture treat those
issues as seriously as any other issue requiring compliance,such as
regulatory or health and safety issues.And rightly so. If it’s important
to the organization to comply with health and safety regulations,how
much more important is it to maintain the integrity of its values and
culture in pursuing its mission?