Fixing a Damaged Corporate Culture

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But morale isn't the greatest, and it's an uphill battle. Some of our employees talk openly about looking for jobs elsewhere."

"And what do you do when you hear about things like that?" I asked him. "We have discussions about it in the staff meetings," he replied. "We do exit interviews with departing employees." So then I asked, "What do those exit interviews tell you?" He sighed. "They tell us that employees don't believe a lot of what they hear from management. That's just the way it is now. People don't believe their employers anymore."

I'm not so sure that's really the issue—or the way it has to be. Motivational gurus say that our actions stem from our beliefs. If we believe employees can't or don't trust their managers, managers won't work especially hard to change employees' perception. But look at the companies that make their employment culture a part of their larger brand, from Starbucks (SBUX) to Google (GOOG) to GE (GE). They don't give up so easily on the trust issue. They spend as much energy communicating with employees as they do communicating with their customers and vendors.

Getting the Point Across

The smartest management practice will fail if the culture isn't healthy, and the only way to fix a damaged culture is to make a habit of listening and responding to employee concerns—that and sharing, sharing, sharing what we know about the business, the competitive landscape, and management plans that affect employees' lives and careers. We can't play our cards close to the vest and expect employees to trust us.

Now, what about the employee-referral bonus program? If any management intervention is plagued by mistrust and misuse, I'd shelve it until the organization is ready to relaunch on a healthier footing. And I'd be sure to let employees know that the $500 checks they've been getting accustomed to are on hold until the mutual trust level is elevated. How will we know when we've reached that point? When we talk at random to our employees, and listen to the opinion leaders who hear from those employees who would never talk frankly with management types, and hear this: You'd have to be an idiot to ruin your reputation in the company for 500 bucks.

If a program gets pulled out of circulation for an overhaul and relaunch, the message you should send isn't "some employees gamed the system, so we're yanking the program," but "we can see the educational and communication steps we need to take to make this program work for everyone." It's frustrating to realize our employees aren't always telling us the truth. It is equally frustrating to take a hard look and realize some of that incomplete-truth-telling behavior may have been learned by watching the management team operate.

Liz Ryan writes her "Career Insight" column and answers readers' questions every week at businessweek.com/managing. She is an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive.