Establish a consistent culture
Heaney starts by reinforcing a single culture throughout the company. That would be a lot easier if every employee came into the office — or any office at all — on a regular basis. But because many work in the homes of seniors and rarely report to an office, Heaney can’t rely on holding meetings or hanging posters.
“How do you teach a Marine to be Marine?” he asks. “You … create an environment in which the values of the Marines are consistently reinforced. That’s what we do — we create an environment where those beliefs and values are consistently reinforced and talked about.”
Whether you’re fostering military men or Medicaid providers, the first step to creating the environment you want is articulating what that is. Start as soon as employees are hired.
During Addus’s two-week orientation program, new hires are assigned to coaches who make sure they each go through the same steps. New employees must schedule meetings with every executive in the company, at least by phone. Each executive explains his or her job, how it fits into the company and how it affects the new employee. To show they’ve completed each step, employees must collect signatures from the executives they meet. Later, their files are audited to verify they’ve received all of the necessary training.
But how do you explain something as ethereal as a corporate culture?
“If you want to know what your company is, where it’s going, it’s best to know where it’s been,” Heaney says. “To communicate the culture of the organization, you really want to spend time on the history of the organization and the different mileposts that the company experienced along the way.”
Explaining how and why your culture was developed will help employees understand it better than if you just hurled them into it.
Talking about the past should lead into your vision for the future.
“It’s important to talk about where the company is going,” Heaney says. “‘This is what we want to be; this is why we want to be it.’”
But you wouldn’t drop your Marines on the battlefield with just an orientation handbook. So continue reinforcing your beliefs and values to keep employees connected to the culture after their first couple of weeks.
Sometimes, that involves simply pointing out examples of your culture in action.
“You literally will tell somebody that we’re doing this because it’s consistent with our beliefs and values,” Heaney says.
So if one of your values is personal growth and development, you should support that with a training program or a tuition reimbursement system — but also explain the correlation.
One of the most obvious examples of how Addus reinforces its culture through communication is the company’s Web site. The beliefs and values get first glance at the top of the page, and an additional link gives more in-depth descriptions of each one.
The home page also showcases a scrolling news box that alternates company updates and industry statistics with accomplishments of employees and their children — from a 40th wedding anniversary to the birth of a grandson, a son’s football scholarship to the completion of a sign language course.
In addition to the online updates, employees get newsletters featuring people’s names and accomplishments. They also attend regular training sessions where leaders repeat the themes of the organization.
Classes in the Addus Learning Program are posted to the company calendar so everyone — from the receptionist to a division vice president — has a chance to accept the invitation until the class fills up. Everyone must attend a certain number of classes per year.
“The content for Addus Learning ranges from really simple things: training on your telephone, training on spreadsheets, on new programs or upgraded training on systems that we’re already using,” Heaney says. “But then it can be on industry trends, on customer service, work safety.”
Regardless of the topic, there’s always an opportunity to emphasize the bigger picture.
“There are two important purposes for the Addus Learning Program,” he says. “One is to develop personnel. But the second — and, frankly, maybe the more important thing — is to create a vehicle for communicating the culture and values of the organization.”