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Team in Business Planning

Why you Should Involve your Team in Business Planning

Article by: Sara Pantaleo

Staff engagement in strategic planning is a critical component of success for any organisation. To engage your staff in your plan, you need to start at the beginning and have them involved in the strategy and goal planning; this will ensure they will more than likely exceed any strategy goals set!

Business Wide Buy-in      

Involving your team from the start engages them in the process and gets them to care about the strategy and the outcomes; there’s no reason why everyone won’t buy in once they know what matters most and why the strategy is essential. Rather than fighting to get everyone to buy in once the plan is done, getting the team involved from day one means buy-in is achieved early and with next to no resistance. Beyond planning, you want the team engaged throughout every step; the key to success is a collaborative effort between departments. Every department should be involved in creating the action steps and performance measures and helping to take the action required to achieve success.

Team

Connect Work to Goals    

By tying individual employee performance goals to an organisation’s strategic objectives, you can engage your employees the whole way through and put strategy at the heart of all they do.

Increase Work Engagement

The involvement in planning tells everyone you care about their input. The change from a primarily employee-based performance management system to one that includes more goals and tasks will help staff feel better aligned with the overall success of your organisation. This increased sense of alignment can improve engagement, too!

Teamwork


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What is a Culture Strategy for Business?

Article by: Sara Pantaleo

Culture strategy offers a formal logic for the company’s goals and focuses people around them.

The company’s goals are the priority. Strategy guides activity towards these objectives, while culture expresses them through values, principles and beliefs that guide how people act and interact.

The strategy offers a formal logic for understanding what should be done; it orientates employees around its strategic points of view. Culture gives meaning to everything at your organisation by expressing them through shared group standards of how to behave and perform.

Creating a positive work environment is crucial for retaining employees. A culture strategy can help you create the employee experience your company craves by aligning people with priorities, strategy, vision and purpose, so they feel valued every day of their career! And importantly also, have everyone aligned on the company strategy.

Defining your Culture      

Company culture is a delicate balance between control and freedom. Too much of one or the other can have negative consequences for your company, but when you find that happy medium, it’s incredible what kind of success and culture you can enjoy. If we define our company culture, we can avoid letting confusion and frustration run rampant in our organisation. Company culture is reflected in everything from the purpose and mission statement to the company vision. It needs to stay consistent in order for employees and customers alike to understand what they can expect when working with you or buying your products/services.

If you don’t take the time to think about how you want the organisation culture to unfold, one will spring up without your input, and it might not be good! A negative culture will likely lead to poor employee retention, customer dissatisfaction, poor quality control and poor morale, amongst other things.

Some of the things you can do to define your culture are:

  • Discuss culture with your team. Learn how your team currently sees the culture and how they would like to see it improve.
  • Clarity. Ensure that your strategy, values and vision all align with your culture so there is zero confusion about the standards you operate within and why they are essential.
  • Ensure everyone is aligned with the Company values. The values should act as the foundation of your culture. Ensure these are front and centre, use them as a hiring basis and also when it comes to performance reviews.
People Culture

Developing a People Culture Framework

Elements of your people culture framework should already be part of your strategy; if they are not, you need to start there.

Your framework for culture should include the following:

  • Your purpose. Why do you exist?
  • Your values. How we work together as a team.
  • Your vision.
  • Your mission.

To learn more about developing each part of this framework view, our articles focused on each point.

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