Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1059224
OWN IT | AD Today 2018 | 93 "We have a confidential employee survey each year where we ask 12 benchmarking questions and a few open-ended questions. It provides us with the pulse of our company in terms of what's working and what can be improved on. The results are shared with everyone in the company and this transparency strengthens our culture." – Renee Lytle, E.B. Horsman & Son Continued from page 91 to learn and practice the expected behaviors, communicating examples and stories regularly via e-mails and meetings, building the assessment of core values into your performance review processes, and celebrating and rewarding employees who exemplify these behaviors." #5: MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS In order for you to know whether you're successfully merging the two cultures, there needs to be a way to evaluate performance, and experts agree that continuous engagement surveys can provide a great benchmark for company's culture. At E.B. Horsman & Son, "we have a confidential employee survey each year where we ask 12 benchmarking questions and a few open-ended questions. It provides us with the pulse of our company in terms of what's working and what can be improved on. The results are shared with everyone in the company and this transparency strengthens our culture," shared Lytle. While financial and customer- facing results are important gauges, Crawford also believes that success is often best measured by employee engagement and retention. "Hopefully your company conducts an annual engagement survey which can serve as a benchmark for future results," shared Crawford. "Similarly, as a secondary measure, evaluate if employee turnover has increased since the acquisition. Conduct formal exit interviews, be open to the feedback, and develop a specific action plan." How do you know if you're trending in the right direction? For one, "you start to see and hear the common language of the culture being spoken/written by the new company employees in terms of 'us' and 'we' rather than 'me' and 'them,'" Kaiser said. "You also see new teammates/ departments/divisions including and sharing information with each other and collaborating rather than competing." While there are some tangible steps you can take to integrating a new culture into your company, Lytle concludes that "it's a journey that takes time and requires constant focus because culture is an art, not a science." O w n Yo ur C ul t ur e MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS High Performing Culture High Performing Culture is an AD HR Service Provider that helps companies create, drive, and maintain high performing cultures with a proven system that's straightforward, practical, and easy to implement. To learn more about High Performing Culture, visit www. highperformingculture.com.