Is it working?

It’s working! I do it all the time and have good intentions, so clearly win-win.

People don’t directly say that, but many organizations approach practices intended to build staff morale and culture in just this way. A leader or HR staff person reads about something/experiences something within a partner organization/brought a practice over from a previous organization and thought, “Oh! That’s great. We should do it here.” And these can wildly miss the mark due to missing a key process step. Asking staff.

Through my work I have the privilege of having countless confidential conversations with staff in a variety of organizations. So often I see a clear disconnect between the intention to support staff and actual impact. Consider, are your organization’s incentives, practices and policies intended to improve culture or morale first vetted with staff? And if so, were those staff engaged in providing input in place 5 years ago or more? Have you checked in recently on what is working or isn’t?

Just a reminder that whether it’s your service populations or your staff, if your intention is to help, first ask what help people want. Kudos for having the good intentions. Now let’s get the good results too.