We should be focusing on three things – CULTURE, CULTURE & CULTURE! Every action that we take should have the culture in focus. We want employees to feel like they are supported, that they can speak up safely, that there is a sense of organizational justice and bad behavior will not be tolerated. They need to have a basic understanding of the rules, yes. But taking training and passing the test wile coming away feeling bored, annoyed or afraid does not help. It negatively impacts the culture. If a situation comes up, they will ignore it or bury it. This is quite often the problem. We are focusing on doing what’s easiest to measure, knowing in our heart-of-hearts that it doesn’t have anything to do with learning and influencing behaviors. It’s far better to focus on how to be influential and impactful and then figure out how to measure those things. Here are some thoughts and ideas.

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BRANDING & IMAGE:
Marketing 101 – if you have a bad brand, change it. This can involve changing your department name to something less finger-waggy than “compliance.”  It can involve an interesting tag-line. It can involve a new logo. It can involve characters/mascots/spokespersons. If you want to project a more welcoming, helpful, approachable image, then adjusting your brand to match is a helpful way to start.

COMMUNICATION & PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY:
Behavioral science tells us that the social environment has a tremendous impact on culture. We all have limited time and attention spans, so train less and communicate more! More specifically, communicate about the helpful support system of people, policies and resources available. Communicate about the speak up reporting options available and call out common excuses. We need to create psychological safety and this can’t happen with a once-a-year training or communication. So, if we know we need to communicate more frequently and show up in more places, without message fatigue, being creative and entertaining is helpful. We need to stand out and get noticed. We need to show up differently. Short, entertaining, creative videos, memes, microlearnings, and games are helpful. It increases your exposure and has a halo effect of making you, your policies and resources more approachable.

Transforming a culture isn’t easy and will take time. Stepping back to take a fresh look at how you’re spending your time and resources is helpful. If what you’re doing makes employees feel bored, angry, afraid or like you wasted their time, that undermines your ability to influence their behaviors. Boring doesn’t work. Train and communicate colorfully and it will help shift the culture so that employees will help promote and maintain a healthy, positive speak up culture.

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Ronnie Feldman is the CEO & Creative Director at Learnings & Entertainments, a learning content provider made up of comedians and entertainers with a focus on corporate risk. www.LearningsEntertainments.com