Changing the Culture of Your Business: Harmonizing new and mature employees

Often, we talk about the necessity to keep your lines fresh, showrooms clean and representative of what you want to sell, and touched on various ways to position your business for growth. If you make changes in every other aspect of your business to keep up with the times, why would the way your employees interact with each other and you be immune?

In many cases, matters may be complicated by the fact that many of your employees have been with you for a while. This is good in the fact that you have a great deal of experience backing you up, yet it can be difficult to get long-term employees to buy into a new vision that you have for the company going forward, as they may have become set in their ways.

This is the paradox that you face. You have a mature group of employees that understand your business and does a good job, yet a bit of enthusiasm might lack, as they may feel too “settled” into their jobs. On the other hand, you are trying to inject a new mojo into the business. This is much easier to do with new employees, as they are still trying to make their mark and you can get them to buy-in easier, but how do you get the same buy-in from your existing employees?

You have no chance of impacting change unless two things happen: 1) You lay out the expectations that you have for your employees, and 2) You sit down with your employees and find out what their expectations are from the company. The most important step in ensuring that you have a group of employees that is on the same page as you is to make sure that both understand each other. A harmonious company comes from the ability of management and its employees to work together toward common expectations and goals. Both sides must understand these thoroughly to accomplish this harmony.

I work with a mature group of employees and face these challenges. As difficult as these challenges might be, I will not let them block our ability to enact a positive culture, and work relentlessly toward making things great for all of us. The ultimate goal is to introduce a new structure.

When I sit down with our employees, I make sure to listen to them, let them know that their efforts are appreciated, and stress to them that their points are heard. I talk about four important things that we strive to keep at the company’s forefront at all times: consistency, transparency, teamwork, and attitude.

-Eric Priceman, Victory