Promoting A Values-Led Culture for Your Hybrid Workforce

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Hello, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon for Nonprofit HR’s Virtual Learning Educational Event. Today’s session is entitled, Promoting a Values-Led Culture for Your Hybrid Workforce.

My name is Atokatha Ashmond Brew, Managing Director for Marketing & Strategic Communication and I will be your conversation moderator for today. We have a lot of great content to cover on this very important topic.

Before we get started, though, I would like to go over a few items so you can know how to participate in today’s event.

You would join the presentation listening using your computer’s speaker system by default. If you would prefer to join over the telephone, just select telephone in the audio pane, and the dial-in information will be displayed. You will have the opportunity to submit text questions to today’s presenter, by typing your questions into the questions pane on the control panel.

You may send in your questions at any time during the presentation. We will collect these and address them during the presentation or at the end during the official Q&A.

Today’s event is being recorded, and you will receive a follow-up email within the next few days with a link to view the recording. Along with that, you will receive slides for the presentation. And live webinar attendees will also receive the code for SHRM and HRCI recertification.

Just a brief note about Nonprofit HR. 

Since 2000, Nonprofit HR remains the country’s leading and oldest firm, focused exclusively on the talent management needs of the social impact sector, including nonprofits, associations, social enterprises and other mission-driven organizations.

We focus our consulting efforts on the following practice areas: Strategy & Advisory, HR Outsourcing, Total Rewards, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Justice, and Search. We were founded with one goal in mind: to strengthen the social impact sector talent management capacity by strengthening its people.

Today’s content will be delivered by Jennifer Morgan, Senior Consultant for Outsourcing with Nonprofit HR.

You will have an opportunity to ask questions of Jennifer throughout the webinar. Again, we will get to your questions as soon as we can.

And now, a little about Jennifer. Jennifer works for a Nonprofit HR as a Senior Consultant within the Outsourcing Practice. As an HR professional that enjoys all areas that HR, Jennifer excels in performance management, learning and development and employee relations. She prides herself as a committed, mission-driven leader, with a passion for strategic HR planning. Jennifer lends her talent to organizations in the advocacy space and prefers to work with small but mighty teams.

Prior to joining Nonprofit HR, Jenifer began her career with 10 years in the oil and gas corporate sector, and most recently served as the HR Manager at a social services agency that supported individuals with developmental disabilities. It was at this agency that Jennifer learned, she is passionate about missions that advocate for economically disadvantaged, marginalized and vulnerable communities.

And now, Jennifer, thank you in advance for a wonderful presentation. 

Again, attendees, if you have questions, please add them to the questions pane, and we’ll get to them as soon as we get a chance. 

Without further ado, Jennifer, I turn it over to you to get us started.

Jennifer Morgan: Thank you so much, Atokatha, and welcome, everyone, to the session today. I’m so excited to be here.

I have been in HR, as Atokatha said, a little over 15 years. And even though I enjoy all lanes of HR, I always joke with my friends that I began HR in elementary school, actually. I implemented the rules for the playground, and I even rolled out some guidelines for selling Girl Scout cookies with my troop. So, I do consider myself an HR lifer. With that said, my experience as a Senior Consultant is across all the lanes of HR.

But I’m so excited to present the topic today, because it’s one of my passions, organizational culture, and how to promote a values-led culture within your hybrid organization.

We’ve been through a lot of change in the past three years, and it continues, but most organizations are seeing a space where they can create a hybrid work environment to operate in. And, today, we’re going to talk about some ways to promote your culture within that environment.

So, let’s go through some of the things we’ll cover today. I’m going to start with what I like to call culture 101. And this is a refresher to make sure we understand the different components of your organizational culture, what values mean within that structure and how it serves as the foundation of your organization. 

We’re also going to talk a little bit about your hybrid model. Whether you’re an organization that’s implemented this month ago, it’s a decision on the table, or you are here today to learn about tools, and how to make sure that transition is successful. We’re going to look a little bit, and how to evaluate and assess your current hybrid model.

Then, we’re going to get into the nuts and bolts of the presentation, which I like to call the power of promotion: how we can promote a values-led culture in any environment, but especially in the hybrid environment today. We’ll wrap up with some key takeaways, and then I’ll turn it over to you all for some questions. 

So, let’s go ahead and get started.

When we talk about culture 101, we mean it’s the foundation of our organization. So, most are ready to promote a values-led culture, but not sure where to start. The best thing to do is go through a refresher, just like you will hear today.

What is work culture? Many believe it’s a shared set of concepts that help your employees drive your mission forward. It’s also said that it’s … what’s important to the employees of your organization, and what your organization stands for. 

Now, I want to focus in here on the word “shared,” because … it is important. When say a shared set of beliefs, I don’t necessarily mean that all of your employees need to be identical in their personalities and their working style. But instead, organizations should come together to identify concepts that work as the culture. So, those concepts should be shared.

If you look at this slide here, organizational culture typically consists of attitudes, goals, behaviors, beliefs, metrics and values. There’s that key word that’s going to continue throughout today’s session. Your organizational values. Why are they important? Let’s dig a little bit deeper there.

So, when we talk about organizational values — again, this is not [the] personal values of your employees, but it’s a shared set of concepts that your employees can practice. The Society for HR Management, or SHRM, defines values as “the heart of your organizational culture,” so, in all of these different areas, attitudes, goals, behaviors, beliefs [and] metrics, values really [serve] as your pulse. They state, again, what is important to the employees and what the organization stands for.

It goes further to say your values are what is important, and it reflects what you do and how you do it.

So, some common values that you may see within your organizational culture, are these concepts here: Shared values. Things like excellence, ethics, teamwork, innovation, trust [and] responsibility.

These are all different concepts that an organization can adopt to be a part of their organizational culture. Now, a lot of times, when I work with clients in this space, I always note that I want to make sure they don’t get too stuck in what this group of concepts is called.

Typically, you’ll see it as shared values, like in the presentation today. But, some of my clients have a different naming. Things like guiding principles, or organizational attributes. Those are all OK. As long as there [are] still a part of your culture, and how you communicate them out, people understand that they serve in the role of values. 

So, don’t get too stuck on what your organization calls this component, but really focus in on the concepts themselves.

So, in some of the pre-work questions that you all submitted, I was able to tell that organizations are in a variety of stages when it comes to promoting your organizational culture. Some of you have a culture that you have defined, but maybe haven’t look to in a little bit of time. Others of you have core values that are revisited annually, maybe in a strategic planning meeting [or] a leadership collaboration session.

But you want to make sure before you step forward and promote a culture that, especially your leadership team, has taken a look at what the shared values are and that they still align to your mission and the community you serve.

So, these are just some examples of some shared values. I’m curious to find out what you all would like to propose as some other values that an organization can have. And you could throw some ideas into the questions panel. We’ll take a look at those in just a few moments to talk about other … types of shared values that your organization can adopt.

Well, what are some things that you could think of? I’ll throw out another one.

Initiative is a common value that organizations have as a shared belief of employee, that they all need to take initiative.

What are some other components of values that you’ve seen?

I’ll give you a minute to answer that.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Hi Jennifer, a couple are coming in now.

We’ve got one that says: innovation.

Jennifer Morgan: Wonderful.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Another: equity and justice.

Jennifer Morgan: Great.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Inclusion. Passion. Collaboration. DEI overall. Integrity. Authenticity.

Jennifer Morgan: Great, so you all, you all have a really great foundational knowledge of what can be included in your … organization’s values. 

This next slide also just poses some more opportunities and can gauge sort of collaborations, in case you need to take another look at your values or maybe add them. I have a lot of clients that to ask me for my recommendations when it comes to establishing what their values are. I always have to defer back to them, because I really want an organization to decide what they want their employees to exhibit and what they stand for. Everyone can have a role to play at this stage, whether it’s going to refresh your values to make sure they still aligned, or even creating values from the ground up. What’s important is that everyone has the space to do so.

So, anyone in your organization should be able to meet with leadership, all the way down their direct supervisor, to ask, what are the values of our organization, and why are they important in what we stand for and what we do?

If you’re on a leadership team or a key stakeholder in the organization, this first step is a great opportunity for you to take ownership in the eventual plan to promote your values. So, make sure it’s a re-occurring item on the leadership team meeting agenda. Make sure that year to year in the strategic planning sessions, that values are also revisited to make sure they still align with the communities that you serve.

Sometimes, clients that I work with have an adjustment here, and that’s OK. If your values shift, especially because we’ve been in such a great state of change, that is OK. You just want to make sure that the values that are agreed on are communicated out. We’ll talk a little bit more about that later, and also that it is a shared belief for all of your employees.

So, we’ve talked a little bit about organizational culture, shared values specifically, and why that’s important to your organization. It really serves as a foundation.

We’re going to move a little bit now into your hybrid work environment. So, throughout the last three years, we have gone through such a state of change. You should give yourself a pat on the back because it has been a lot to adjust, and pivot, and redefined things in the world as we know it now.

Some organizations a fully in-house office staff works. Other organizations a fully remote staff works. But what we’re finding at Nonprofit HR with a lot of our clients is that the hybrid model is preferred for a variety of reasons. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about your hybrid model and we’re going to talk about ways to assess and evaluate what’s working and what isn’t working. But we’re also going to talk about why the organizational culture in this model is so hard to maintain.

Back to some of your pre-work questions, I’ve got a lot of you asking how [you can] help your teams feel more unified. How can you boost the employee morale? Some of you even noted that you may have started in a fully remote environment, but now your hybrid, and how can you make sure everyone functions together? The best way to do that is promoting your culture through the values-led side of things. So, we’re going to talk through that. 

The next step is, let’s take a look at your hybrid culture.

So, I’m interested to know from you all, and I’m going to turn it back over to you all for some responses, when it comes to your hybrid workforce — again, this could be something you did in the past, it’s planned for the future, or the decision is still on the table, but we, at some degree, have thought about some advantages and some challenges of a hybrid work environment. 

So, I’m curious to hear from you all, the organizations here today. If you can list in the chat panel, what do you think are some advantages of a hybrid workforce? I’ll give you a couple minutes to respond there.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: We’re waiting on those [answers], Jennifer.

Jennifer Morgan: OK, great. So, advantages of a hybrid work environment. One example is, a lot of people like the freedom to be able to do life-dependent errands in the middle of the workday. I know that’s certainly one for me, to be able to maybe get some grocery store shopping done on my lunch break. So that’s definitely an advantage that we’ve seen as HR consultants with Nonprofit HR. What are some other advantages of a hybrid work environment?

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Great, some of them are coming in now, and flexibility of fitting work around personal family priorities, better work-life balance, wider [pool] of candidates for the jobs we hire, employee retention … and satisfaction, engagement, and less time commuting. Lots more have come in, but those are the ones I’ll read for now.

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah. Well, great. Well, thank you all so much for sharing. And behind that question is really the larger understanding that the hybrid work environment does show a lot of advantages and opportunities that we didn’t see before, either fully remote or fully in office.

A Gallup poll did a study, and they found similar things. The top advantage of working in a hybrid workforce, and you’ll see those here, improved work-life balance, which you all shared. More efficient use of time, that was my example. Freedom to choose when and where I work. I don’t know about you all, but I now have a favorite coffee shop where I like to do work. Less work burnout or fatigue at higher productivity. 

So, we’re all in the same understanding of some of the advantages of a hybrid work environment. And your employees may have already shared this with you, or maybe they haven’t, but we’re going to talk about some ways to gather this feedback, and why this evaluation is so important when we take the next step to promote your values-led culture.

So, we’ve talked about advantages to a hybrid work environment. I’m going to get a little bit more challenging here, and I’d love for you all to share. What … do you think are the top challenges of a hybrid work environment? So, these are things that may be at the decision table you need to address as priorities. Things such as access to technology would be a perfect example. So, I’ll give you all a couple minutes and let me know. There’s no right or wrong answers, I promise. What do you think are some of the top challenges in a hybrid workforce?

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Those are coming in, Jennifer.

Jennifer Morgan: Great.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Loss of connection. Lack of face-to-face time for both formal and informal relationships. Disconnection in building relationships across staff and projects. Accountability. Weaker relationships mean more challenges dealing with conflict disagreements. Less spontaneous collaboration. Cybersecurity concerns. Communication. Consistency. Lack of access. It just goes on and on. I mean … they’re really fired up here.

Jennifer Morgan: Yes. there are a lot of challenges. You know, earlier I said, let’s pat ourselves on the back because we got through the initial stages of a global pandemic and we’re still operating. But we still have a lot of challenges to address, especially when we talk about functioning in that hybrid work environment. 

The same Gallup poll asked the question as well about, what are the top challenges in a hybrid workforce? And we will see that the top one was less access to work resources and equipment. But a close second is exactly what this session is focused on today. Employees feel less connected to their organization’s culture, and we see that in a variety of ways. Some of you all set accountability, consistency, ability to collaborate [are] some of the challenges. You have to remember that all of that, it’s really resting on your organizational culture.

So, where do we go from here? We’ve talked about what organizational culture is. You understand your values of your organization. If you haven’t, you’ve created them. And now, you have to address these challenges in your hybrid work environment.

It’s important to understand in creating your strategic plan on how to promote a values-led culture to understand where your employees are now. How can I meet them where they’re at? And you can’t do this until you evaluate and assess your hybrid working environment.

So, back to we talked about taking ownership within this process.

You want to make sure that you are showing your employees that they have a voice, and not just [around] the decision that’s made about the hybrid working environment itself, but they have a voice and how we’re going to promote the culture in that work environment. 

So, what are some ways you can do that? Well, if you haven’t already, you need to gather feedback from your employees. And some of you may have. I have clients that are circulated surveys before returning to a hybrid environment. I have others that have set up open office hours to get their employees’ understanding. But it’s very important that you get feedback from your employees about what they think are the challenges and the advantages of a hybrid work environment. Before we start promoting our culture in that same space, I love these questions that I’ve shared here today, because if you’re not sure where to start, this is a great starting point. You can ask these questions and a survey monkey via email. You can host an open forum.

I don’t want this step to feel as though it’s a work burden. But I want you to know that it’s very important when we get to talking about how you’re going to promote your culture in the hybrid work environment.

So, some questions here are, like, just like the one we just asked: Describe the advantages and challenges of your hybrid work schedule. That’s always good to ask. 

How are you spending your time when in the office? Some of you said that your team members and employees still don’t feel unified, some are remote, some are in the office. Well, can we take steps to unify those that are in the office? Maybe we can find out more by how they’re spending their time.

We can ask our employees to let us know about the work that they do independently, and what has a better outcome with in-person collaboration? This, again, helps us focus our plan to drive a values-led culture.

And then finally, what happens in person that maybe doesn’t happen when working remotely? We can often assume what’s taking place — well, when everyone’s in the office, they’re able to gather around the table and collaborate. But I’ve found many times my clients come to me asking for assistance, because even those employees that are in the office, they’re still decentralized and used to working independently, just as they do remote.

So, we want to ask that question, again, but for formulating a plan, just like you would for a project or a program, you want to know your audience and gain feedback, so you know how to drive that values-led culture.

So, we’ve talked about culture one-on-one, what our culture is, specifically the values component.

Now, we’ve moved to the hybrid work environment. Lots of change, a big adjustment. All of those challenges that you all shared are valid. But so many times, we find ourselves addressing the challenges that are specific to different programs or operations, and not the challenges of how to promote culture.

So, let’s get into the nuts and bolts, the power of promotion. Starting with, why does it matter?

Well, it’s important because of a lot of things that you shared. A lot of those challenges that you all shared can be resolved by giving your employees a sense of belonging or giving them a higher level of engagement. Employee engagement is just a way [of] saying that your employees feel valued. And one way to make sure that they feel valued is to share with them the shared values that they should be exhibiting.

So, we still have competing priorities and a hybrid work environment. All of the clients that I work with, even us with a Nonprofit HR, we have work to get done and we have deadlines to meet.

But I want you all to remember why it is so important that we take this journey to promote our values in a hybrid work environment. It automatically leads to attracting top talent. That was one of the advantages one of you all mentioned, is that it helps in recruitment. It is a driver.

Higher employee retention. When your employees feel that sense of belonging, then they want to be a piece of the puzzle. They want to be part of that mission that you’re driving forward.

Employee engagement. Just as we talked about. Your employees need to feel valued and when they feel valued, their performance increases.

Increased productivity and profitability. So, we’re always looking at this from a standpoint of, again, operations and programs. But have we thought about how organizational culture really drives productivity and profitability? I always use this point. If I’m meeting with leadership teams, even with board members that are asking, why is this so important? Why is this on the priority list about work culture? It does directly tie to productivity and profitability, which is something that the entire organization is invested in.

And finally, it’s important that we promote a values-led culture, because it boosts employee advocacy. Everyone on your staff knows at least 10 people, and you want them to be speaking about your organization in a positive light, when they feel that sense of belonging, when they know what the culture is, and they feel a part of it. Yes, everyone here, this organization exhibits these concepts that are important to me. Then, they are sharing the good news, and it serves as really an employer branding, organizational branding, just by your employees talking outside of work.

So, promotion matters. One of you all shared in the pre-work questions that, in an attempt to promote your culture at a hybrid work environment, sometimes employees aren’t engaging in voluntary sessions.

So, I’m going to talk a little bit about that, included in the different ways that you can promote your culture. But just keep in mind that we want to make sure that our employees know the importance of organizational culture. 

So, I would recommend in this space that rather than making these sessions voluntary, you certainly don’t want to send out a memo and all red letter saying, “Must attend this org culture session.” Because that doesn’t sound like any fun. But, you could say, “Team, I want everyone to come together to the table because organizational culture is so important, and I’m going to share with you the reasons why and how you can be a part of it.” When we promote it in that way, then we find people wanting to join and voluntarily.

So, let’s talk about some key tools that you can start practicing today to promote a values-led culture in your hybrid work environment.

I’m going to go through these different areas with you now.

It’s important to remember a hybrid work environment. Yes, you have employees now reporting to a physical space, whether that’s within the community or within an office headquarters. But we still have people working remotely, so that’s the trick. How do we promote a values-led culture, regardless of the environment, but specifically when it’s hybrid?

The first thing I’d like to share is to nurture transparency. We have taken all these steps within the session today to learn about the org culture for you, to make sure you and your leadership team have aligned your values with the mission. And you have even taken a further step and gotten feedback from your employees about how they feel.

Do they know any of that is going on?

A lot of times, transparency is key in driving a values-led culture. Remember, a lot of times values are about honesty, trust [and] ethics. And so, just by communicating out what you’re doing towards your organizational culture, it really helps promote it.

So, what I would say is, “I understand, staff, that we haven’t looked at organizational culture in a while. But I went to a Nonprofit HR session, and it’s important. And so, I would like us to at least create a roadmap of the next steps. It’s going to take us some time. But we can get there, know that I acknowledge it, and I’m working on it.”

Transparency is key. You can also be transparent with the content of your culture itself, through different ways of technology. Where are your values right now? Where are they displayed? How are they communicated out? Remember, we no longer have the break room. We no longer have drop-ins in the office all the time. Right?

So, we want to make sure that we’re being transparent about our culture itself.

You should add it to your logo of your internal check-ins. It should be a re-occurring item on your meeting agendas: Here are values. I’ve even worked with some clients that have the values as their opening homepage on their intranet. So, we want to make sure that, in addition to acknowledging that there’s work to do, and we will be promoting our values-led culture. We also want to make sure that we’re transparent about the concepts themselves.

Remember, one of those challenges of a hybrid work environment was access to information, so this would be an easy resolution that is culture based to help resolve that.

I also like to propose rewards and recognition that are specific to your organizational culture.

We have project-based awards. We have operations based awards. But how come we don’t have rewards and recognition around organizational culture? A lot of times that’s missing, and we want to make sure that it’s included and all of your other avenues for reward and recognition as well. At Nonprofit HR, we have a system where I’m able to go in and give a cheers or a kudos to one of my peers for exemplify any of our organizational values. That’s a great way for me to always keep them top of mind and also make sure that I’m recognizing my peers in the space of org culture.

Another thing that I’d like to promote is what I like to call a values victory award.

And that’s easier to implement than it sounds, not a lot of overhaul, but, you can …  have a different value to focus on every quarter, every six weeks. And then, whoever exemplifies that, based on their actions in their day-to-day, wins the values victory awards. Now, in reward and recognition, don’t forget that it’s not just about recognizing when people are exhibiting values, but it’s also about communicating it out. So, be transparent when somebody is being recognized for following a value.

For instance, “Jennifer did a great job being agile, because the meeting agenda change, and she just did a quick pivot, and it was great.” That would be a great announcement at the following meeting. It triggers people to look into what the values are, and, again, keeps that top of mind in their day to day.

Similar to reward and recognition, learning and development is often an area that we have established for programs, operations and other functions of your organization. But have we applied it to your organizational culture?

What can you do internally in the learning and development space? You can hold sessions just as we started this presentation today, making sure that people understand the textbook definition of organizational culture, what all the components are, and specifically why values are important.

Let’s make sure to do a culture 101 as a start with our staff, so we make sure that they know, not just the values by name, but what’s behind the concept as well.

Another area is in development. In our check ins with our employees and our check ins, with our direct supervisors, we’re getting status updates about the work itself, about the deadlines, about driving things forward, but are we also checking and on how we’re developing with our values? One thing I’d like to recommend here is telling an employee that, “Hey, at every check in, I’d like you to pick a different value from our organization and be prepared to share with me how you work towards that value since our last check-in.” It doesn’t add too much extra work. It keeps your values and organizational culture top of mind, and it really challenges both your employees and you as a direct supervisor, to monitor for the development in that space.

Remember, we want our employees to feel more connected by promoting our organizational culture. And learning and development is a great way to do that. Don’t forget, if your budget allows, there’s also a variety of external opportunities in the learning and development space, where you can learn more about organizational culture, how to align it with your mission, and make sure that you keep the energy up in that promotion, so it’s sustainable.

You also need to champion the concepts.

By that, I mean, we’ve done all this groundwork. We’ve communicated things out, we’ve created recognition and reward, and we’ve even got some tools for learning and development. But if we ourselves are not practicing that the concepts, our values, then it’s a trickle effect. Then no one else sees their importance. You don’t have to be a leader in your organization to be a champion of your organizational culture. You don’t even have to be a key stakeholder. You can take it upon yourself to make sure you understand what the values are, how that aligns with the work you do, and be a champion.

You know, similar to rewards and recognition, a lot of times people refrain from giving themselves a pat on the back. But that’s another way to champion these concepts. You can share with your team, “Well, I think I really practiced this value by doing this.” And just, again, keeping it as part of the conversation, makes others want to join it, too.

Finally, I always like to recommend that we promote by value and action. What does that mean, exactly? So, we’ve got our values established, we’ve done all the training and understanding to know why they’re important, and why they need to be promoted. But how do we do it? A lot of time, that’s a disconnect that I see within my client base is that they’ve got a great plan, they’re ready to promote, but there’s still this disconnect and how to do it. I always like to recommend that we make sure your values within your org culture are actionable.

So, for example, you can look at a job description, and those are your establish responsibilities specific to how your organization operates. Well, let’s take that a step further.

Maybe I can sit down and look through my job description and say, how do each of these responsibilities exhibit one of my organizational values? That is a way for me to be actionable in how I exhibit my values.

Another way is in your performance reviews, whether it’s a formal annual review, or maybe just an informal check-in, please share how you exhibited the value of initiative in your work.

You can have your values on a rotation. I’ve supported clients in this space where at every team meeting, there’s a roundtable. We choose one of the values and everyone gives an example of how they utilize that value in the day-to-day work. So, it creates a connection because it is not just a concept that’s floating above in the organizational culture space. But again, there’s truly actions that you can take, that your employees can take, to be a part of your organization, to feel that heartbeat of the organization, as SHRM describes it.

Sometimes, even with all of these tools and recommendations, there’s still something amiss.

We at Nonprofit HR have clients come to us and say, “You know, we’ve done all this work on org culture. We followed your recommendations, but we still have low morale. There’s still a disconnect, or we went out for feedback, and they’re still coming back and saying, they don’t feel a part of the team.”

So, what happens at that space? You want to revisit some areas and make sure that you’re executing them appropriately.

So, when your power promotion, using what we’ve recommended, isn’t working. Let’s make sure that we’re checking in on these spaces.

Communication is key. You’ve heard throughout this presentation; I can’t stress it enough. We want to make sure that your employees know, what your org culture components are, specifically, what your values are. Remember, in the hybrid work environment, we don’t have as much shared space opportunities anymore. And even when we do, usually, not all of our employees are in the office at the same time. So, we want to make sure that we’re addressing that through communication. So, just as we decided on how to move from an office meeting to Zoom, or maybe meet our communities we serve at coffee shops instead of over the phone, you want to make sure that you adjust your communication for your organizational culture too. Again, it could be a tagline on your intranet. It could be three rewards and recognition. Just make sure that you’re over communicating what your values are. It may seem repetitive, but it works. Eventually, it will start being in everyone’s day-to-day up opportunities.

Mission alignment. Maybe your employees are still not engaged, because the values [that] are in the culture itself isn’t mission aligned That’s OK. We’ve gone through a lot of change. And sometimes, the direction, our strategic plan, maybe the mission itself has adjusted a bit. Let’s, again, start with that step one, and make sure your values are aligned with your mission.

Next is accountability.

Someone mentioned that as one of the challenges in a hybrid work environment. And it can be tricky. Sometimes, again, people believe that programs and the operations are things we need to be accountable for, but as long as the work is getting done, yeah, we can make culture optional.

Let’s make sure that we are stressing the importance like we did a couple of slides ago about why organizational culture is so impactful. It should not be voluntary. It should not be something that your employees can choose whether or not to be on board with. We need to hold them accountable just as we would for a missed deadline. 

An example of this is, if you have an employee that has completed a project, and they’ve met expectation, but the expectation was for them to collaborate when, instead, you find that they did all the work independently. Well, we don’t have to go with extreme is disciplinary action. But I would hold that employee accountable, at least communicate to them, “I appreciate the work that you’ve done. Thank you for the deliverable. However, let’s not forget that one of our values is collaboration, and I really would have liked it if you would have brought in some other key stakeholders in the work that you are doing.”

So, accountability may be one of the reasons that your employees don’t see the value of promoting culture.

Also, make sure there’s a clear path forward, similar to making sure that your values are actionable. They need to know the “whys,” the “what’s in it for me.” What’s behind all this work? So you want to lay out a roadmap for your employees. This is our organizational culture. These are specific values. These are the advantages of us if we all join onboard and exhibit these values. And this is the end result. So, make sure that your employees in your organizations see the big picture. We’ve gotten really down and deepened specific in our values. And then we expanded out to org culture, but make sure that they see how it ties into your strategic planning, to your operations. That’s why when we were talking about organizational culture, you saw metrics as one of the components. It’s really important that it’s tied to the big picture of your overall mission and the communities you serve.

Finally, give everyone within your staff a sense of purpose.

In addition to getting feedback from them about how they feel about the hybrid work environment, it would be great to give them some ownership and promoting the culture as well. We talked about some ways to do that. Recognition and reward. Learning and development. Well, that doesn’t all have to be assigned to one … group, or even one employee, one leadership team. It can be a shared responsibility, give your employees a sense of purpose and promoting a values-led culture, because then regardless of if they’re working remotely or they’re an office in a hybrid environment. They see value, and they feel that sense of community because they have ownership and promotion as well. So, in a sense of purpose, you can say, “Here are all our values, what do you all think should be the first value we focus on and why?” It gives people the opportunity to give their feedback, but also be a part of the plan.

So, make sure your employees have a sense of purpose, when you’re promoting of values-led culture.

So, these are just some of the ways to address, if things are still amiss after you’ve taken the steps that we talked about today.

I want to make sure that we get to some key takeaways, and, while we talked about a lot today, it’s important that you, as an organization of committed to a values-led culture, you’ve already done so by attending this session. So, the first step has been taken, and that’s great. Now, you want to commit to it throughout the process. 

Some of you shared your pre-work notes, that you’re having some concerns about keeping up the energy and the motivation. Well, to address that, make sure that you are transparent about the commitment that your leadership team are doing, to keep the motivation behind this push. Make sure that you show periodically that you’re committed to continuing to promote a values-led culture, even though some of us are remote, and some of us are in office.

Make sure that in your promotion, you create a plan that is strategic and intentional, and has purpose, so your employees see value, they are a piece of that puzzle, [and] they can feel that sense of belonging as you share different ways to promote and give them purpose.

And finally, be sure to serve as an intentional champion. It seems to go without saying, but again, competing priorities, things get busy. [Culture] often falls to the wayside, so this is why we know this is such an important topic. So, make sure, in the work that you do, you are being an intentional champion of your organizational culture, specifically your values.

I hope that you all enjoyed the tools that I’ve shared with you all today. I’m happy to open it up to questions. And thank you so much.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thank you so much, Jennifer, for such a lively presentation and so much information on shared values. We do have quite a few questions that are coming in. If you are on the line and have questions for Jennifer, please add them to the questions pane. We’ll get to them as soon as we can. 

Here’s the first question, Jennifer. Will you share more about developing the definition of core values, including behaviors, that go with them and how to communicate them to staff, to get buy-in? Right now, they are just words left up to the individual to define.

Jennifer Morgan: That’s a great question. And so, it’s twofold.

You want to make sure that, in your case, they’re just words left up to the employees to define. So, I would recommend, rather than leaving that as an open space to be defined, that the leaders of the organization, take those concepts a step further and define what they mean. 

So, for example, if we are using the concept of trust. So, defining what that means specific to the organization and it should involve and be relatable to your mission in some way. So, Nonprofit HR, I would like to exhibit trust by knowing that the work I give to my clients meets Nonprofit HR’s expectation, they can trust me. My peers can trust the work that I’m doing. 

… So it’s not left up to me to define what trust is in my role, that’s left up to my leaders. But you can get more specific, how we talked about making those values actionable. So, once we’ve defined exactly what that is, making sure it aligns with the mission, then what are some actions that can be taken within that? So, give some examples to the employees. This is the definition of trust, and this is how you can see it in your work, and this is how you can see it with your peers. So, it is a little bit more work upfront, but it saves you work down the line, because what you don’t want is your employees coming together to the roundtable with examples of how they exhibited trust, and they’re all different based on their definition. So, I would recommend that it’s defined at the leadership level. And so that way, it’s a shared understanding of what those words actually mean.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks Jennifer. Here’s another question, and it’s about a written statement on what culture is. The person is saying, I’ve seen values written, but not culture, is it really an unwritten feeling?

Jennifer Morgan: That’s a great question. I don’t believe it’s an unwritten feeling, You know, when we talked about the different components of organizational culture, there are many facets. Values is just one of them. So, when we talk about organizational culture, there are some more formal, broad definitions that you would find online. But what you want to make sure is that it encompasses all of the components. So, organizational culture are not just the values, they’re not just the behaviors.

But like we saw, it is also … things like beliefs and understandings. So, different from a mission statement, you’ve got your mission statement. But I do see organizational culture actually defined in concrete terms. It’s going to feel abstract because there’s abstract concepts. But that’s why we want to make sure to define them, if that makes sense.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Yes, here’s another question: How do you identify, refine and introduce or re-introduce organizational values to those who were hired when you were in an all-virtual or non-virtual environment?

Jennifer Morgan: Right. So, you want to make sure, in the nurturing of transparency, when you’re promoting your values, you want to make sure that it’s included in your onboarding, right? So any time someone joins your organization, they learn about both the culture and what the values are, but then you need to periodically make sure that you’re communicating that out as well.

So Nonprofit HR is a perfect example. We started as a fully remote organization pre-pandemic and we continue to be one, but that didn’t mean that we didn’t need to go back to our values and make sure that they didn’t need to be tweaked or adjusted, that the behaviors that we practice in the beginning are different now.

So what I recommend when you are talking about, well, some people started when we were all together, some people started fully remote, and now we’re kind of bringing the two pieces together. There’s no reason that you can’t hold a session, just to, as an organizational culture refresher session, so that everybody is in the same space and understanding what the culture is and what the values are, because even if we were all in house or all remote, it’s something that you’d still be wanting to communicate out periodically. So you want to hold those refreshers and make sure that your employee population, even though they’re not in the same physical space anymore, and they’re in varying physical spaces, they’re still having that as top of mind to know what the values are. 

So I would propose just holding a training session, a refresher, again, communicating that out through your intranet, even if it’s through a survey, and that makes sure that the people that joined when your hybrid and the people that joined in a different environment, they’re still on the same page in terms of the beliefs and the values that they need to be exhibiting.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer, Here’s another question. I would like to know how these tools can be provided or applied to organizations with multiple locations where expectations of offices may be different? For example, a headquarters versus a satellite location.

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah, that’s a great question.

So, when we talk about your cultures-led organization, we’re taught, excuse me, values-led culture, we’re talking about concepts. So my first question, if you were a client, I would be asking, why does the difference in office location change the difference in values? 

So, if you have a headquarters that is maybe more technology driven, but a satellite office [and] their more in the field interacting with the communities that you serve, you’re going to have to adjust how you communicate out what the values are but the values themselves shouldn’t change.

So if you have a value of being trustworthy, why is that value different in the headquarters office than the satellite office? Now, the actions to show that in their day-to-day work may be different, and that’s OK. But there should still be alignment, regardless of the location, even if it’s decentralized across several locations, you want to make sure. For example, if you did a value of the month club, and every month we’re going to focus on one value. Well, you want your headquarters and your satellite office to be focused on the same value. But how they take action on that may look a little different. And that’s OK.

So you want to make sure that the definitions of your values, how you’re describing them, remains consistent across the different environments.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer. Here’s the question that’s really having to do with push back. How do you redirect staff who has been with the company for a long time or organization for a long time and get their buy-in, moving toward a different culture or different set of values? They are usually the folks who say, “This is how we’ve always done it.”

Jennifer Morgan: Change is hard, right? And that’s kind of what I talked on in that topic around [how] we’ve gone through so much change, and now, a lot of us were having to communicate to our employees that there’s even more change in the hybrid work environment.

So, you want to start by trying to support your employees that are resistant to a shifting culture as much as you can. You want to answer the “whys” and the “what’s in it for me.” Show the importance of those values, and the importance of why we are exhibiting these behaviors in all the work that we do.

From there, it should give them a sense of purpose. And even invite them to have some ownership in the process to say, “Can you think of any creative ways that we could be promoting our culture? Or aligning with these new values that we’ve established?” That’s the first step, to try and welcome them to have a seat at the table, to join in on what everyone else in the organization is going to be functioning under, this organizational culture.

From there, we do have to still look at accountability. So, you’ve taken the steps to make sure your employee understands the “why” and the “what’s in it for me.” You’ve taken steps to make sure all of your employees know that the culture is shifting, and this is where we’re going now. But beyond that, if you continue to have an employee that is pushing back, that is not open to the change. That’s when we may need to start looking at a little bit more [of] formalities in terms of what the expectations are. 

So I would recommend reading with that employee and saying, “These are your expectations that are specific to your role your responsibilities, but these are the expectations I have specific to our organizational culture, the level of accountability for, both is the same. Meeting a deadline is the same as responding to how you exhibited a particular value in any given month.”

There shouldn’t be a difference for that employee, and that’s often what we find, is happening. So you’ve got to hold them accountable just as you would, for any other work, as you would for organizational culture. After that, if they continue not to join in, sometimes, I’ve even seen these employees really kind of spread the negative attitude and impact morale overall. You may have to look at more disciplinary actions, “Hey, I really want to get you on board. I understand this is a change. We are shifting. It’s difficult for everyone, but here’s the value and the reasons why that I’ve shared with you. You know the expectation. Going forward, if I see this continuing, then we’re going to have to have a more formal conversation, and it may result in disciplinary action.” But that accountability is what is so key and promoting your culture. I don’t want your employees to see it any different than completing a project or getting a something in by deadline. It should be just as important, if not more, it’s creating that sense of community that leads to all of those advantages that we saw.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer. Several questions around leadership, I’m going to summarize it with this one. What are some strategies to get leaders out and in front of our core values, and begin exemplifying some of those examples?

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, anytime I need to speak to executive leadership, whether that be board members, leaders, key stakeholders in an organization, I’m always trying to show them really, what the risks could be if we don’t do things. And so, when you’re talking to leaders, again, similar to the last example I used, a lot of times, they just don’t see the value of organizational culture. They don’t see the value of that promotion. So, you need to highlight what the risk is, if those efforts aren’t made by your leaders. You can look at your retention. You can take a survey of your employees and ask how they feel connected at work. And using those results, you can support your ask of your leadership to say we’ve got to focus on organizational culture. We need to implement these tools and these practices to make sure that we avoid all of these different risks.

You know when we talked about [how] it’s important that we have organizational culture for employee engagement, attracting top talent for making sure that we’re profitable and productive. Well, without the org culture, it’s the opposite of all those things. So, you can let your leaders know, “You know, this could be related to attracting top talent if we don’t act on it now.” Our employees could become more disengaged and then we risk losing them altogether, if we don’t prioritize our organizational culture. 

So, I really would recommend you tie it to the risk to your leaders if they don’t start acting on these different practices and really promoting their organizational culture. If you’re in a finance accounting space, you can always look, too, to tying it to the bottom line, whether that be employees that you lose and lost skills, and experience, things like that. So, there is also a quantitative way to capture it in some spaces as well.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Here’s another question in the same vein of leadership. What are some ways someone new to leadership in an organization can bring about culture change or shift?

Jennifer Morgan: That’s a great question.

So being new leader in the organization, right, your first step. Sometimes the interview question they ask [is], “If you were to get the job, what would you do in the first three months?” And oftentimes, as leaders, we say, “Well, I would step back, and I would listen, and I’d make sure I learn things first before I just come in and start implementing change.” The same applies to organizational culture and trying to make a shift there. 

You want to find out what’s been done. If anything, you want to find out what didn’t work, if anything, what did work, and oftentimes we’ll find there was a lot of effort around promoting organizational culture in the past. But it kind of dwindled down, especially with the impacts of COVID and we’ve got bigger things to figure out now. So, it’s a perfect time, getting back into that hybrid space, we’re not where we were in March of 2020, to make sure that we are prioritizing the organizational culture again.

So as a new leader, you want to ask those questions to your key stakeholders about org culture, “What is it? What’s been done?” And then, just as I would, for another project as a new leader, I would step back and assess and try to come up with some framework, a clear path forward of this is where the I believe the work culture is now. These are some improvements I think we need to make. And you can add in, if we don’t make them, these are our risks. And this is where I would like to take us down the road. So, sit back and listen as a new leader.

Listen and learn before you come in and implement change, right, because that’s changed management 101. But when you’ve identified what the gaps are and what the needs are, you can use this promotion tools to really cater a strategic plan that isn’t just, “I’m the new leader coming in and changing everything.”

But you’re the new leader that’s recognize that organizational culture improvements could happen, and these are the steps that we need to take to get there.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer. We just have a couple more questions, and we are a few that are really focused on communication. The emphasis is all around using or leveraging internal communication to really push those values. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah, you know, organizations, their technology ability varies, right? So we want to make sure that we do something that makes sense for your organization. That’s the first thing. Let’s be realistic in those goals of communicating that out from a technology standpoint, but because we’ve already made a lot of adjustments throughout the COVID space, whether that’s chat channels, or even new check-in meetings, just utilize things that you’ve already established to communicate out your organizational culture. 

So again, an example I use was I have a client that now anytime they open their intranet, there’s a tagline of the values that scrolls across the screen. So, regardless of what they’re doing, where they’re trying to navigate to, the first thing they see is, “Oh, yeah, those are organizational values.” So, those are some things you could do.

You could also, if you don’t have a high level of technology at your organization, just make sure that your values are added into your [meeting] agenda topics. Keep that as a re-occurring topic to make sure that we’re communicating at least to some degree on organizational culture and values itself. 

Some other fun things that I like is on my team with a Nonprofit HR, sometimes, you know, a lot of times, we check in about the work that we have to get done and what’s in front of us and challenges. But do you ever have check-ins or just purely about organizational culture? That’s another way that isn’t so technologically heavy but it’s still prioritizes it. So, within your group space, you could say, “Hey, this meeting, we’re actually not going to talk about the project. We’re going to talk about organizational culture and maybe some different values that we can make sure that we’re exhibiting as we work through this project. So, that’s another way to communicate out.”

Sometimes it can feel challenging when I say to be transparent in your technology, so I don’t want you to shy away from it thinking it needs to be some grand, complex communications technology implementation, that’s not it at all. But look to what you already have and see if that can be utilized. I have another client that uses a software that similar to Salesforce, and they actually added in their organizational values within that space, as well. 

So, there’s different areas that it could be added, probably within platforms that you’re already using. At the very least, you could add it to your Word document agendas, or even just have it as a re-occurring theme at your check-ins.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer. This question is regarding boards and how to address incongruence between board behavior and internal staff behavior.

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, that defaults back to being a champion of your organizational culture.

And so, from this space, if you’re the executive director, if you’re the CEO, if you’re at executive leadership, then what do you do if there’s a disconnect between your board and how your employees are behaving? You may need to escalate it to your board chair, or who you’ve built a relationship with. And really, how we talked about when things aren’t aligning, there’s still a level of accountability, even you can hold people accountable up. So, when you’ve got board members that don’t understand the importance of your organizational culture and its value, you want to make sure that doesn’t trickle down all the way to your employees. Instead, the leadership team, at minimum your Executive Director or CEO, needs to meet with a member of the board, similar to how you would do with your internal leadership team, and talk about, “Here’s the risk, if we don’t start exhibiting by these measures.”

Unfortunately, because the board similarly takes a different role when it comes to disciplinary action, you may have to talk to your personnel committee, or someone that you’ve built a relationship with among the board, to address that. But it can be tricky at that level, but it can be done, and it really comes down to accountability and making sure that they understand why they need to be aligned. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: And our final question, Jennifer has to do with sustaining employee morale and motivation, and how challenging it has been considering their hybrid workforce. So this is more of a statement versus a question, but that’s the emphasis of it. It’s around their workforce feeling tired and then still driving points of values and demonstrating those values but not knowing when enough is enough.

Jennifer Morgan: Right, so we, it is a healthy balance. I think someone else wrote in one of the pre-questions that, how can I make it not seem like just another burden? 

So, we’re exhausted [from] just change itself for the past two years, right? We’ve gone through a lot. So overall, your employee morale can be low. But how do you address that from a culture standpoint? Well, let’s make sure they understand that there are pieces of the puzzle. Start by being transparent and acknowledging, “I know that we’re tired, and we’ve gone through a lot, and now we’re adjusting, again, to a hybrid work environment. But I want you all to know, I’m taking the steps that I need to take to make sure that our morale improves and that we all maintain our organizational culture.” So, you want to be transparent, meet them where you are, where they are. You don’t need to say, “Everything’s perfect, and now, we’re going to make sure that we all know the values.” It’s OK to acknowledge that, “We’re tired, and this feels like more work, but I really want you guys to come to the table with me because it is so important that we exhibit our organizational culture.” 

The question of when is enough is enough. So, this is a space of continuous periodic checking, continuous improvement. So, organizational culture is always something that should be touched on.

But maybe if you know that the next three months are going to be busy because of budget season, then you don’t want to take completely off the list, but you can lower it in priority or you can say, “I know it’s going to be really busy, but one of our values is agility. So let’s talk about how we can be agile, even though it’s going to be a very busy season.” So I think it’s important that we don’t forget to acknowledge our employees morale and meet them where they are. We don’t just want to glaze over and say, “I went to this great session and now everything’s going to be fine.” We’re going to say, “We’ve got a little bit of work to do. I know we’re tired. I know this hybrid work environment is a challenge. Let’s set up some time. I want to hear your feedback. What is the most challenging thing to you? What do you need from me to make this hybrid work environment work for you?”

And, again, start with that evaluation and the assessment before you go into planning how to promote your culture. That’s a big space and opportunity for you to hear from them some things that you may not know that can contribute to improve morale.

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thank you so much, Jennifer, and that concludes our Q&A for today. Thanks to everyone who attended our webinar. We hope you found it valuable. There are many more webinars coming your way in 2023. Be sure to check out our events calendar at nonprofithr.com/events. Also, please be sure to complete the feedback survey that will pop up once the webcast has ended. Your comments help us with our planning and can inform future topics we cover as well. 

If you’d like more information about Nonprofit HR and working with our team, please send us an email to [email protected], or visit us online at nonprofithr.com. Jennifer, I’d like to turn it back over to you for any closing thoughts before we conclude.

Jennifer Morgan: Yeah, thank you so much, Atokatha. So that I just want to end by saying that, again, the first step in being successful in promoting your organizational culture in a hybrid environment is being here today. Just remember that, like many things in HR, it is a marathon, not a sprint. But if you are transparent about your intentions, you make your employees feel a part of the process, you use some of the tools today, you can be successful in promoting your culture, even in a hybrid environment. So, I hope you enjoyed some of the information I shared today, and it will help your organization. Thank you so much!

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Jennifer! Thanks again for attending, and have a great rest of your afternoon.