The “Process” of Culture By Steve Anzalone, Partner, Ideadvisors, Idealliance


I have spent my entire career as an “operations guy” running commer- cial printing plants, so I very much think in terms of process. Building a culture is usually viewed as a soft skill based on emotional intelligence, but I’ve learned that the programs and processes


The Magazine 10 3.2017


around culture building can be quantified and insti- tutionalized. Once those processes are hardwired, they become part of your company's positive culture and how you do business.


Branding and Culture Every interaction you have with your customers, sup- pliers, and stakeholders sends a signal about your cul- ture. How they are greeted when they walk through the door, the demeanor of your staff when you give a tour, the tone of an interview, how problems are rectified, or how you engage your community—every- thing you and your employees do reinforces your brand and speaks to your culture.


Hiring Placing structure and processes around hiring can yield great rewards. When I started my career in the 80's the pool of solid, experienced employees in our industry was huge. We all knew who the A players were and we routinely hired them away based on their reputation in the marketplace. I’m sure we can all recall a press operator or sales rep who fits this description and turned out to be a high-main- tenance challenge. Today is a very different land- scape. Many owners indicate that finding talent is


among their biggest challenges. In our companies we adopted the “interview 365 days a year” men- tality—we used networking and unsolicited appli- cations and resumes to constantly meet potential candidates—regardless of whether we had openings. This provided a pipeline of pre-qualified individu- als with an interest in our company when the time came to hire. We could point to countless cases where top-notch employees were people we had met years before we actually hired them.


Reduction of employee turnover and hiring right the first time are tremendously important. With a national employee turnover rate in excess of 16% and the cost of replacing a mid-level employee estimated to be 150% of their salary, it’s important to invest the time and resources necessary to assure new hires meet your unique requirements and, more importantly, fit your culture.


Onboarding Nothing will tell your new employees more about their importance than those first few hours and days with your company. Often, “onboarding” consists of an hour with HR to review benefits and the employee handbook (with a firm reminder to read the entire book and return the signed acceptance page in the back). They are then sent out into their work area for on-the-job training.


Not good enough! Onboarding should be a weeks- long—or even months-long—process of making sure new hires understand the company’s history, meet the owners and key employees from every depart- ment, and learn how the company functions and how their role fits into its success. This can easily be accomplished by creating a shadowing program. Employees spend time in each department over a


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