Workplace Culture Shapes Employee Behavior

LAS VEGAS – Any car dealership can boast how wonderfully it treats customers. But it means little without a storewide culture giving life to such proclamations, says dealership trainer and consultant Jim Dance.

“Please, I beg of you, don’t put up the signs saying ‘We care’ first,” he tells dealers attending the 2012 DrivingSales Executive Summit here. “First create a plan of how to do it.”

The conference mainly focuses on the latest in Internet marketing. Dance’s presentation is a departure from that. It’s about human interaction and collectively embracing positive principles as an organization.

“You’ve got to have technology, but technology without a culture will not take you to the promised land,” he says.

Stressing the importance of a dynamic, vibrant and respectful dealership work environment, Dance offers dealers pointers on how to achieve it:

In the absence of a culture of ethics and energy, workers often behave badly, including dogging it on the job.

Dance cites a survey indicating 50% of employees admitted to working just enough to keep their jobs. Three out of four said they could show more productivity.

If dealership workers know they can sell more cars with some extra effort, why don’t they? “Because in many situations they can get away with it,” Dance says. “They might get yelled at during a sales meeting, but otherwise nothing happens.”

Yet much complaining occurs at badly run organizations. Dance tells of a study in which frustrated bosses and workers acknowledge having said disparaging things about the other.

Among the employers’ comments:

Remarks from discontented employees include:

Dance argues that behind most problem employees are problem managers getting in the way and failing to fulfill their true responsibilities.

Such shortcomings, in turn, are tied to an unhealthy workplace, he says. “No matter how great a strategy, it’s not going to happen without a good culture. It’s the personality of an organization. It is what it feels like to work somewhere.”

Without that constructive influence shaping employee behavior, “organizations default to drama, blame, chaos, complacency, hostility and employees feeling like victims,” Dance says.

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