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3 Ways CEOs Can Improve Their Company’s Organisational Alignment

Updated: March 2, 2022

It’s evident that having a productive, dedicated, and engaged workforce is crucial to success in any kind of business. To keep their employees happy, many employers and heads of human resource departments resort to giving out raises, attractive benefits, and even stock options.

While these are excellent ways to retain good talent in your company, this is hardly the only option. Besides, relying on a salary increase as a way to encourage loyalty is not only prohibitively costly and unsustainable, but it is also largely ineffective.

In an article by the Wallstreet Journal, researchers from the University of Toronto and Evolv Inc, a maker of workforce software found that a 10% pay increase only made employees “somewhat less likely” to quit. This makes sense, given that no matter how much you raise your employee’s pay, there will always be other, bigger companies offering better compensation packages.

Therefore, if you truly want to decrease attrition and retain talent in your workforce, you also need to improve your organisational alignment.

 

What is organisational alignment?

At its core, organisational alignment is all about maintaining a shared and well-communicated set of values throughout your company. This means that everybody, from the top management all the way to your entry-level employees, should understand your company’s vision, mission, and goals.

This doesn’t mean just mindlessly memorising motherhood statements. It entails making sure that your employees can identify with these goals and understand that beyond working for fair compensation, they are also working towards larger goals!

This allows employees to know and feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and that they are contributing to a larger vision in their own respective roles. Once your company achieves organisational alignment, you can rest assured that your employees are truly working towards mutual success.

Needless to say, achieving organisational alignment is easier said than done. Now that you understand its importance, here are three tips that you can use to achieve organisational alignment.

 

1. Encourage collaboration

It’s common for businesses to feel like a bureaucracy, especially as it grows larger in size. Many employees know their immediate managers and teammates, but rarely ever get to meet people in the higher rungs of leadership. As a result, some workers feel like they’re working in silos, as they become hyper-focused on their specific responsibilities. This can result in feelings of isolation, which is a stressor that eventually leads to lower levels of motivation and engagement.

There are many ways to encourage collaboration. Some companies address this by adopting a more open office floor plan, while others invest in corporate team building activities. All of these activities can help employees see that they are contributing to the company’s goals, no matter how seemingly small their tasks are.

 

2. Recognise and reward employee’s contributions

Recognising contributions and efforts, whether through a formal awarding ceremony or a simple compliment in passing, will go a long way in developing a positive working relationship between you and your employees. This helps them feel that their everyday efforts are seen and that their work is necessary for the daily workings of the company.

While there should always be room for constructive criticism, leave this part of the job to their immediate managers. As CEO, your words of encouragement will go a long way in keeping employees happy with their work.

 

3. Encourage a culture of transparency throughout the organisation

The bigger a company grows, the bigger the tendency there is for management to leave their rank and file employees in the dark about significant developments and company decisions.

Encouraging transparency doesn’t necessarily mean letting everyone have a say on every single decision, especially on delicate matters. However, the more that an employee feels that they are involved in matters that directly affect them, the more “aligned” they will feel with your company’s goals.

 

Conclusion

Achieving organisational alignment within your company is not something that can be done overnight. However, the earlier you start, the quicker your employees will also feel that they are truly contributing partners to the company—not just hired guns paid to perform a task.

 

SKILLFIRE is a group of consultants with the goal of helping you establish better Objective and Key Results practices. Besides helping you grow your company, we also aim to sustain that growth by helping you achieve organisational alignment.

 

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business thrive!