Sometimes organizations, or even specific functional areas within organizations, get caught up in their own world and work in isolation.

While this can be seen as being efficient, it can also lead to less innovation, organizational divisions, and reduced capacity to deal with crises.

Reflection:

How siloed is your organization? Let's find out.

On a scale of 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree' rate the following statement about your organization:

• People in our organization work well with others regardless of department or organizational boundaries to get the job done.

If you are a big organization, you might first focus on silos within your organization. If you are a small organization, you might want to reflect on how well your organization works with others.

Our world is becoming more specialized. Individuals are becoming very skilled in narrow fields. While this is great for efficiency and quality, it can make us very vulnerable to crises when individuals are unavailable or when resources need to be diverted towards a particular task. Having proper knowledge sharing is key.

On a scale of 'Poorly' to 'Really Well' rate the following question about your organization:

• How well is knowledge shared around your organization?
• Can staff perform multiple roles?
• How well are skills shared around the organization?
• How well does your organization learn from mistakes?

Task:

Sometimes we rely heavily on certain people - they may have skills or knowledge that is vital to the organization. We need to make sure that information is shared amongst staff and that someone else can always step up if another is unavailable. Similarly, we need to make sure that we are doing succession planning for when that staff member moves on. 

To ensure you are better able to cope, start a program of cross-training and knowledge sharing.

Assign an employee to spend one hour a week shadowing another employee. It is just an hour, but over time, that person can learn just enough to ensure you cope with the absence of a key player.

This also has the added benefit of keeping staff engaged and fulfilled as they learn new skills.

Sometimes staff get caught up in their own roles, responsibilities, and goals, and forget to engage with others. One of the easiest ways to overcoming this is increased communication.

What deliberate approaches are you going to take to share information about what you are doing inside your organization?

• Regular newsletter
• Regular email
• Regular get together
• Noticeboard
• Staff meetings with cross department sharing
• Work picture of the week 

Reflection:

The following are attributes of an organization that has a proactive posture - an organization that is ready for change.

On a scale of 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree', how much do you agree with the following statements:

• We have a focus of being able to respond to the unexpected.
• We are able to collaborate with others in our industry to manage unexpected.
• We are able to shift rapidly from business as usual to respond to crises.
• Whenever our organization suffers a close call, we use it for self-evaluation rather than confirmation of our success.
• Our organization readily responds to change in our business environment.
• In a crisis, we seek opportunities for our organization.
• We tend to be optimistic and find positives from most situations.

If you tended towards disagree then you might have a few problems in navigating your business successfully through turbulence. We will continue working on this together to improve your change readiness.

A change ready culture will not be possible unless your organization enables and encourages ongoing learning. You've been working a lot on this by using this tool but it's a good time now to reflect on how you are doing. Below are key elements that enable organizational change, learning, and improvement.

On a scale of 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree', how much do you agree with the following statements:

• We have an openness to learning, feedback, and ongoing improvement.
• We encourage problem solving, not blaming.
• We have a 'safe' culture, where it is fine to admit mistakes, and jointly learn from them.
• We hold an ability to pause and reflect, as individuals and as a group.
• We have an ability to listen to others, and consider alternative options.
• There is a willingness to take risks, and explore untested new ideas.

As you reflect on the questions above and the answers you provided, identify some places for improvement and discuss with your staff.

Task:

What would make work more fun? Is work fun for your staff? Part of good leadership is understanding your staff and know ing what motivates them.

If your staff enjoy their workplace, they will be more committed to the organization. Ask a couple staff members what would make work more fun (within the necessary constraints needed to get the job done).

Need some ideas to get started?

• Social event
• Organizing a social sports team
• Photo caption competitions
• Morning tea

BCP Action:

• What ideas are you going to implement?

Reflection:

For employees to feel valued, there needs to be a supportive environment. Employees who are engaged and committed can make an enormous difference to both business as usual, and crisis response. Below are some factors that create a positive work environment:

On a scale of 'Strongly Disagree' to 'Strongly Agree', how much do you agree with the following statements:

• We have supportive leaders who relate well to others and show genuine interest.
• We make physical, emotional, and social well-being a priority.
• We actively manage workload stress and provide adequate resourcing.
• We communicate openly, letting workers identify work issues and constructively express their views.
• We empower staff and develop their work interests.
• We have a culture that supports learning, where employees are genuinely involved.
• We acknowledge outside of work stress.
• We are clear about roles and avoid conflicting expectations.
• We are prepared to adapt and modify human resource practices.

Look at your lower scoring areas. Write down one thing you can do to improve that and create a more engaging culture.

Well done! You have now completed People at Work: Organizational Culture.

All these elements will help you and your team work more effectively to navigate a crisis in the future.

If you have not already done so, remember to add your notes to your Business Continuity Plan.