Learn how to refresh your company’s culture in SGEi’s February newsletter.

** Culture Hacking Is a Business Thing—Not Just an HR Thing
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Creating a meaningful and effective culture is not just an HR thing—it is a business thing that every manager needs to be involved in. Welcome to my culture hacker blog series for 2016! Each month I’ll share more insights into how you as a manager or executive can elevate or reprogram your company code to ensure employees are engaged and inspired, and that customers are loyal advocates. In this first blog, let’s set the stage for why culture is so important, and what it takes to be a culture hacker.

Culture is the mindset and attitude of your employees about what they do, which manifests itself in how they do things; in other words, their actions and behaviors. These behaviors manifest themselves in their interactions with your company, your customers, and other associates or staff.

While culture is often discussed in terms of employee engagement and retention, we are more focused on the relationship between culture and customer engagement and retention. This line of thinking is not new, and was documented and demonstrated back in the 1998 Harvard Business Review article, “Employee-Customer-Profit Chain at Sears,” wherein the writers demonstrated that employees’ attitudes led to a better customer experience and in turn better profits.

Yet, whenever the topic of culture comes up, it seems more about talent engagement and retention, which of course is important and a direct correlation to an improved customer experience, but must harder to prove in terms of ROI. With so much discussion about the value of many HR functions, there is little doubt the work of culture makes a difference to your customers, and yet it is no longer just an HR thing—a focus on culture and inspiring the right employee mindset must be an every day thing. Continued on SGEinternational.com (https://sgeint.wpengine.com/culture-hacking-is-a-business-thing/) .

– Shane Green, President & Founder, SGEi

Want to learn more about crafting a successful business culture? Check out this video of Shane Green, President of SGEi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–BUjbVZgGU

** Why You Should Train Your People
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When I began training nearly 30 years ago, it was common for there to be an uproar for more training after receiving customer feedback scores or a mystery shopping report showing a decline in service and standards compliance. Yes, training was thought to be the magic bullet to cure any ill within the organization. While that cry for training for the sake of training is still often heard, there are new reasons to consider the importance of why training is important and necessary to be successful in a 21st century work place.

More than ever, companies are competing to attract the top talent from a new generation of workers that will soon be the largest in the workforce. It is imperative to keep in mind that Millennials don’t just want a paycheck and benefits—they want to work for an organization that will allow them to acquire skills and knowledge to grow both personally and professionally. This will soon be the largest generation in our workforce, so we have to cater to them to some degree.

“This is a revolutionary shift from the traditional sense of on-the-job training. Training no longer exists solely to meet compliance or company-mandated policies. The best training program today is a rich learning experience that taps into employee interests, passions, and career goals,” Adam Miller wrote in Fortune Magazine.

Tied to learning is employee mobility. Most Millennials expect to have many careers in their lifetime. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average young adult has held 6.2 jobs by age 26. Why not enable them to shift careers within your organization? Give them access to the training and learning they need to move both vertically and horizontally. “Let them experience the company holistically and build a lasting bond,” says Adam Miller in, “Three Things Millennials Want in a Career (Hint: It’s Not More Money).” Continued on SGEinternational.com.

– Thomas Martin, VP of Learning & Development, SGEi

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

– Edgar Schein, MIT Professor

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