Department Culture

Ideas for Promoting Growth

We can help employee strive for excellence in both their personal and professional lives as we create a culture of growth. A culture of growth provides encouragement, opportunity, and a safe space for learning and trying out new and better ways of doing things. There is also an element of patience and understanding as employees learn from mistakes and overcome challenges.
 

• Connect with Your Professional Community and CDC
  Find unique ways for your department to engage with your Professional Community and make it a learning, sharing, and exciting way to connect, and grow.  Also encourage employees to meet one-on-one with their CDC to receive personal career guidance.

• Hold a Career Development Retreat, Conference, or Seminar
  You could invite an expert in your field to train on a relevant topic from time to time. Students employees to attend as well. 

• Hold a Book review 
  Offer a book review on a business, leadership, or development topic (see the recommended reading list).  Maybe you could use it as an opportunity for sharing goals, motivating, and supporting one another.

• Provide Strength Finding Assessments 
  Offer professional development assessments from time to time such as strength finder, 360 feedback, Myers Briggs, bias testing, etc.  
  

• Highlight Development Resources
  Share relevant trainings on the BYU training LMS or from the LinkedIn learning platform, or articles that shed light on important career. on the and invite coworkers to complete it with you.

• Schedule an HRD Workshop 
  HRD offers a variety of workshops on communication, mentoring, career development, Job Crafting, and more.

• Schedule a Presentation  
  Schedule the wellness coordinators to give a short presentation in your department. Our personal development presentations include Power Hour, 20-hour Skill Development, or the Power of Tiny Habits.  

• Encourage Good Financial Stewardship
  You could use ideas from the DMBA Resource Library - or the BYU Wellness Library.  

Ideas for Valuing People

Inherent in the BYU mission is the acknowledgement that each person is a son or daughter of God with infinite worth and divine potential. Because of this understanding, we seek to create a culture where each person is valued and given opportunities to learn and grow and become their best self.

• Get to Know Each Person in your Department
  Find ways to get to know and value each person within the department. Look for appropriate ways to let people share their interests and talents with others such as during a noon hour luncheon where one person shares an interest or where everyone brings something that represents an interest to share with others, etc.

• Ensure People have the Resources and Autonomy Needed to do Their Job
  Understand what is causing barriers for people in your department and and work with the appropriate people to find positive solutions.

• Celebrate Birthdays and/or Accomplishments
  Do something special for birthdays in the department such as decorating, bringing in a treat, having a traveling birthday trophy, or organizing a birthday card for coworkers to sign. When someone excels or does something significant recognize them.

• Let People Use their Strengths
  Each person has natural strengths and abilities. We can find opportunities for people to use these strengths to help with projects. We can learn strategies for how to be multipliers rather than diminishers within our department. HRD has a great workshop for this.

• Show Respect in all Circumstances
  Even when discussing differences or difficult topics we can do it with empathy and respect. There is so much more going on in people's lives than what we see on the surface. Sometimes poor performance can be due to our own neglect in training or setting clear expectations.
  

Ideas for Developing Students

As faculty and staff of BYU we support the aims of a BYU education by developing students within our sphere of influence. Regardless of our role, we have opportunities help students grow in spirituality, intellect, and character and in their desire for life-long learning and service.

• Train Employees who Work with Student
  Schedule HRD to come and train employees on Mentoring Training students, Incorporating the Aims, or on Supervisor Basics so they can learn how to better support students and the mission of the University.

• Provide Higher-Level Opportunities for Students
  When big projects are being done, consider including students on the team. Take opportunity to create more high-level internships, jobs, and inspiring learning opportunities. You could also look into Experiential Learning to see how to structure experiences to better grow students.

• Team Up with a Professor and Their Students for Expertise
  If you need expertise or new perspectives on a project, consider working with a professor to do a class project surrounding your challenge. You could also consider hiring an intern who is studying a topic for which you have a need.

• Let Students Learn from Professionals
  Provide mentors for student employees or let them work alongside a professional for an hour.

• Sponsor Training for Students
  If you work in a department with an expertise, you could sponsor a Q&A or lecture series for students to come and attend. You could also invest time each week toward student trainings and development.

• Encourage Employees to Join BYU Bridge or BYU Handshake
  Joining these platforms will provide students with more local/convenient opportunities to reach out to talk with professionals in their field to receive insights and advice for their careers.
  

Ideas for Building Unity

• Use a Communication Platform 
  Implement a communication tool (Teams, Slack, etc.) for greater connectivity. Include everyone and create different channels for sharing work and development related information, questions, and meet-up opportunities, etc.

• Hold a Weekly Department Huddle 
  Have a quick huddle in person or on zoom every Monday morning. This is a chance to gather everyone to say hello, give announcements, do some recognition, go over the calendar, define priorities, etc. 

• Schedule a Teambuilding Training 
  Schedule HRD to give a department training. Topics include understanding personality differences, generations at work, team building workshop, workplace communication skills.   

• Organize Fun Unity Building Activities
  Activities provide opportunities for people to interact and get to know each other. There are a variety of resources you can check out from the HRD/Wellness Employee Engagement Item Library that are fun and/or educational.

• Do a Team Challenge 
  Initiate a department challenge (you can look at the challenge section of this toolbox for ideas).  

• Hold a Lunch Bunch Meet-up 
  This could be in person or via zoom. Use question prompts to aid conversation. You could check out the We Connect Cards in the HRD/Wellness Employee Engagement Item Library!