5 strategic ways for improving organizational climate

Summary

1. The organizational climate is how an employee views the workplace and company culture over the long term.
2. Great workplaces have at least one thing in common, an excellent organizational culture/ climate
3. Including employees in decision-making increases their motivation, output, and organizational development.

What is organizational climate

The concept of organizational climate was popularized by Litwin and Stringer in 1968, and is defined as a combination of measurable elements of the perceived workplace environment, that is created by and directly or indirectly affects or influences people who work or interact within this workplace, in a way that motivates or demotivates their performance and productivity. Simply put, it is the nature of a workplace. AIHR defines organizational climate as an employee’s long-lasting perception of the workplace.

Read also: 9 components of an excellent organizational climate

The key components of an organizational climate include management orientation/ style, interpersonal interactions, type of leadership structure, concern for employees, degree of trust and control, individual freedom, risk-taking, appraisal/ reward  system and conflict resolution.

All great workplaces have at least one thing in common, an excellent organizational culture/ climate. Make no mistake, organizational climate is not something you can build overnight, it is just like character, it takes time, but the little progress made every day counts a lot towards the overall climate. This insight shares the techniques to enhance the climate of a workplace, which include:

1. Open communication: As research has shown, two-way communication promotes a workplace where employees are aware of their roles and are involved in the decision making process, a process also known as employee engagement, that promotes workplace productivity. The quality of communication, also known as the communication climate, is a crucial process factor that promotes or inhibits staff members from communicating horizontally, upwardly, or downwardly. In the workplace, communication fosters coherence and collaboration, which have been shown to increase productivity. Conflict resolution is also made simple by communication. An organization can gain from effective communication in a variety of ways. It: Increases employee satisfaction, engagement, and morale. Employers can promote commitment and loyalty from their staff by helping them understand the provisions of their employment.
2. Concern for people: An organization creates an environment that supports a particular concern it would like to foster among its employees, as was discussed in a previous insight. If a company wants to promote creativity, it will cultivate a culture of independent thought, effective communication, and teamwork; if it wants to promote leadership among its staff, it will cultivate a culture of delegation and decentralization. The management needs to be concerned about the employees. It should work to improve working conditions and ensure their welfare. It ought to be concerned with the improvement of human resources. Making workplaces welcoming for employees should be a genuine concern for managers, which means finding ways to make work less stressful.
   Read also: The rise of employee experience in the workplace today
3. Participative decision-making: Numerous studies have shown that including employees in decision-making increases their motivation, output, and organizational development. When employees are involved in setting goals and making decisions, their commitment and cooperative behavior increase. As a result of increased employee participation in decision-making, employee commitment to their organizations ultimately increases. It has done a good job of capturing the need for more decision-making power on employees to flatten organizations through technology, where many workplaces are reducing the number of middle level managers and choosing to make front-line employees decision-makers. The goal is to increase their involvement at work and, as a result, their performance and loyalty.
4. Change in policies: A company with effective policies on important workplace issues fosters fairness, enabling employees to carry out their responsibilities successfully and positively impacting the performance of the company. The management can affect the culture of the company by altering the policies, procedures, and rules. This may take some time, but if the employees perceive the change in procedures, policies, and rules as beneficial to them, the change will last for a long time. Even when there is a nonlinear relationship between job tasks and the policies in question, workplace policies and practices can have a significant impact on employee traits like engagement, commitment, motivation, and skill.
5. Technological changes: In a previous post, we explored the 6 ways IT is transforming business processes and workplaces, which include flattening organizations, separating work from location, reorganizing work flows, increasing flexibility of organizations, changing the management process and redefining organizational boundaries. It’s common knowledge that employees oppose change. But where technological advancements will enhance employees’ working conditions, the change is readily accepted. If the management adopts improved working practices after consulting with the staff, the atmosphere will be better.
   It is reasonable to anticipate that when operational policy changes are made, organizational performance will suffer until staff members are comfortable with the new procedures. Any change that affects how employees carry out regular tasks can be anticipated to have an effect on organizational performance, including the adoption of new procedures, the establishment of alternative operational systems, and the migration to new hardware or software as directed by policy. Performance may suffer while staff members receive new technology training and may even suffer as they become accustomed to the changes.

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