The pulse of your company is within the culture of your business. Excellent company culture creates a feeling of trust and understanding with your employees. This feeling helps to show them that they are a part of something more significant within the company. However, there can be times when your people don’t feel that trust in their jobs. How can you tell when your company’s culture is going astray?

1. Employee Dissatisfaction

When you talk to your employees, do you understand their goals and aspirations? Unhappy employees can be dissatisfied with a myriad of things in the workplace. It could be due to being underpaid/undervalued within their position or having a limited path for career growth. Sometimes it can be as simple as a lack of interest in the place they currently are and wanting something more. Your employee’s satisfaction hinges on your ability to not only communicate and listen to their wants, needs, and desires but also to act and help your people to buy into your company culture.

2. Missed Goals

Are your teams missing their marks for success within the group? That could be sales goals, team goals or any other commitments not met. Do you see a lack of engagement among your employees to get those goals accomplished? It may be a sign that your people are losing motivation and drive for the company goals. Be sure to communicate clearly why the goals are important and how their contributions are essential as well. This feedback will help to show them the value they create and allow for a forum for feedback to determine if there are any other issues present that need addressing.

3. Communication/Alignment issues within Employee Layers

Both communication and alignment are integral to having high performing teams. It comes from the different levels of the company as Managers must align with their groups and vice versa. When you lose that alignment between the layers of your employees, errors increase, and productivity is affected, not to mention the break of trust that could occur between management and employees. Make sure you are cascading messages appropriately and continuously communicate with your people about what the goals are and their roles in helping conquer that goal.

4. High Turnover

People leave toxic environments and bosses, not jobs. When you start to see your best people moving on and are continually trying to catch up with hiring and training, you could have a problem with your company culture. Turnover can come from several different sources, but it almost always is due to the employee wanting a better situation to work within. Identify the problems of the dissatisfaction of your people by talking to them regularly and change your work environment when needed to avoid losing great employees.

5. Increased call-outs and absences

If you are working in an environment that irritates and upsets you, would you want to show up? When you’re seeing your employees calling out more and more, you should take that as a signal that there could be an issue with how your people are viewing the job. Sometimes there are extraordinary circumstances that cause someone’s absences, but the only way you can find that out is by communicating with them. If they are unhappy, then take the steps necessary to help correct the relationship with the employee and listen to their feedback wholeheartedly.

Positive cultures and environments bring out the best in your employees. It can be easy to get bogged down by the busy work of the business, but the world doesn’t work without the people who live in it. Making sure your employees feel like an integral piece of success helps give your people something more.