“What is the one thing I can do to progress my organization’s culture?” The truth is that there’s not basically one thing that will make strides in how your workers feel approximately what they do and who they do it for. We characterize culture as the collective hearts and minds of an organization. As such, there are numerous things that influence employees’ states of mind around their work and the company they are working for. When we conduct culture evaluations, we regularly discover that numerous instruments, forms, and exercises associated with the employees’ encounters at work play a portion in how they feel. We also find that the most impact on the representative involvement is the employee’s coordinate director.
Employees want to work at companies that share their values.
Quality products, inventive showcasing, and booming deals are all important variables in measuring the victory of a company. But who makes it conceivable for these triumphs to happen? Committed, cheerful representatives who are committed to their organization’s values and mission. Employees are the spine of your operation, and in the event that they are unsatisfied, other regions of your trade will endure as well. Alternately, a working environment where representatives are locked in, feel they are backed by administration, and can collaborate with other divisions will not as it were assist you retain your top employees, it’ll assist you pull in modern ability.
What is company culture?
According to the Harvard Business Review, company culture communicates an organization’s values and convictions through shared presumptions and gathering standards inside the work environment. Company culture may be a shared conviction framework where representatives have comparable values. Company culture can incorporate a few components inside the trade, counting the work environment, company mission explanation and center values, management style, and work environment morals. Company culture can be pondered or come almost normally.
Benefits of a strong company culture
A strong, cohesive company culture benefits your company from the inside out. Employees prefer to work for a company with a strong culture and a defined set of positive values. Customers also prefer to patronize a company that has a clear mission and that has positive workplace values. Below are some additional benefits a company can reap by placing importance on company culture:
- Increased employee retention: Prospective employees are attracted to organizations that have a reputation for being a good place to work. Better talent is attracted to this type of organization, too, and your current employees also have a higher likelihood of staying with the organization.
- Better image: Brand image is impacted by the company’s culture. If customers hear that your company has a toxic work environment, sales will be impacted.
- Increased efficiency: Company culture affects productivity levels for all staff members.
- Improved teamwork: Projects can be completed cooperatively with an improved outcome due to a strong company culture.
Here’s how to ensure your company culture is positive and will help you retain top employees.
Understanding your company culture
Once you’ve conducted a review, it can be enticing to move full speed ahead on executing changes. Be that as it may, genuine alter doesn’t happen overnight, and changing your company’s culture can be time-consuming. Change starts with understanding the distinctive sorts of company culture and where your company fits – and doesn’t fit – into each type. “It’s difficult to epitomize company societies,”
Armstrong said. “Societies are an amalgamation of variables: environment, progression, open versus private, decision-making forms, benefits and values.” Companies ought to get it how their interesting personality will impact the change of the culture. For case, a company with nose-to-the-grindstone workload desires might include benefits like catered nourishment and in-house, high-tech coffee machines.
On the other hand, a company that values work-life adjustment, just like the adaptability to work from domestic, might not have as numerous benefits exterior of standard well-being and life protection benefits.
8 tips for improving your company’s culture
Changing your company’s existing culture is not only going to be a time-consuming process, but it involves nearly every aspect of the organization.
Armstrong recommends these four strategies when changing your company’s culture:
- Demonstrate to employees that their involvement is critical. Invite employees to share their thoughts both during company culture discussions and during day-to-day operations.
- Make sure management’s actions don’t clash with stated values. If the founder, CEO or other executives are not “walking the walk,” employees will not be inspired to do so either.
- Align everything (department, initiatives, processes, etc.) to support company culture, and remind employees that they are invited to contribute to that culture through collaboration and innovation.
- Conduct periodic (preferably annual) culture audits. Don’t wait until something significant happens (e.g., top employees quit) to evaluate if your efforts are working.
- Remain transparent in all dealings. Build trust with your team by being transparent about everything going on behind the scenes.
- Celebrate the successes of all. Recognize achievements big and small. If the company has a win, let everyone bask in the glory.
- Offer flexibility. Flexible scheduling has become an increased need within the workplace. Demonstrate understanding by working with staff members to accommodate evolving scheduling needs.
- Provide increased responsibility. Never micromanage your staff. Show that you trust and believe in them by giving them more responsibilities.
Once you’ve improved your culture, the next challenge is to maintain it.
Tips for maintaining a positive company culture
You want to make sure a potential hire is a good fit for your company’s culture, and vice versa. Poor fits can largely be sussed out during the interview process.
Set the example.
Company culture is set by the leaders within the organization. Demonstrate the values you want to see in staff members. Practice transparency, and always have your door open. Be the first to arrive every day and the last to leave every evening.
Plan team-building events.
Schedule fun team-building events to encourage an ongoing positive workplace atmosphere. These events should be on company time. Schedule the event out of the office and hire a team-building trainer to run the event. Examples include laser tag, escape rooms, and hiking trips.
Conduct behavioral reviews.
Armstrong recommends conducting a behavioral interview as part of the hiring process. Behavioral interviews entail giving a candidate a scenario or test to see how they respond. Depending on your company, this test can vary. Organizations where making decisions under tight deadlines regularly happens could design a test that candidates must complete within an hour.
Of course, beyond how candidates respond to behavioral assessments, you want to ensure that candidates understand your company culture. To do this, communicate your company’s culture and core values in job postings.
Encourage growth.
Once you’ve chosen a candidate, don’t let your efforts end there. As the employer, you should encourage growth, leadership development, and top-down collaboration. Mentorship programs and regular goal-setting and evaluation are other examples of cultivating a positive workplace culture where talent will want to stay.
Establish open lines of communication.
For current employees, Armstrong recommends ongoing communication. Join employees in the lunchroom, ask them questions or, if you have a contact in the organization, check in with them.
“A company has a healthy culture when it contributes to the creation and accomplishment of a company’s vision, it attracts people into the company, it retains employees, and it focuses on employee engagement,” Armstrong said.
Changing your company’s existing culture takes hard work, perseverance, and commitment. More than 50% of organizations struggle to retain valuable employees. Improving and maintaining company culture isn’t just for show; it is a matter of survival for your organization.