Every corporation has a distinctive corporate culture. What factors shape that culture? Organizational culture is fundamentally all about relationships. Interactions at work, whether positive or negative, play a big part in how we acquire and nurture workplace culture.
The new paradigm of work, which includes remote work, a distributed workforce, and frontline or deskless workers, makes it harder to build a strong culture. In fact, 37% of workers say they generally feel cut off from other people.
You can start to change business culture by concentrating on strategies to improve connections at work.
Why is a strong company culture important?
Employees are connected to one another and to the organization as a whole through culture. It embodies your mission, objectives, and values. Every aspect of the work experience is influenced by your company culture, and this has an impact on financial results like productivity, staff retention, and revenue. Therefore, strengthening employees' relationships with their coworkers, managers, and leaders is a great place to start when thinking about how to enhance workplace culture.
Why is building a good company culture so challenging?
The degradation of the workplace culture brought on by fewer in-person interactions, on the other hand, is eroding ties among coworkers and impeding collaboration, shared values, and business outcomes. Two-thirds of the remote workers questioned in a study assessing the state of the culture of remote work were found to be disengaged from their jobs. In addition, over a third of respondents to the study indicated they had virtually no face contact with their coworkers, despite the fact that 40% said this would help them get to know one another better. When connections are the cornerstone of culture, that's a problem.
To overcome this obstacle, it will be necessary to discover a way to replicate the in-person experience digitally and to build new channels for speaking about both work- and non-work-related subjects.
Ideas to improve company culture
Here are 10 company culture ideas that will lead to a more positive work environment and help boost employee engagement.
1. Establish purpose
Establishing purpose for your company is one of the simplest methods to demonstrate what your firm is all about and to improve team culture.
Creating a sense of purpose at work can take the following forms:
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Posting the mission statement of your business
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Distributing the core values of your business
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Establishing clear guidelines for team members
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Defining project schedules
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Regular all-hands gatherings where departments can report their achievements
Your employees will have a sense of direction to buy into and support once you have clarified your company's focus. Employee motivation and productivity are increased when team members understand how their contributions contribute to the larger picture since they then believe their work is actually important.
2. Open up communication
When communication is lacking, staff members may feel isolated or uninformed. You should create a forum where staff members can voice their opinions if they have ideas to improve team performance. Similarly, team members feel disengaged, unappreciated, and aimless if expectations or updates regarding the status of projects are not communicated.
Examples of improving communication include:
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Being accessible to workers
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Establishing a framework for anonymous input
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Obtaining feedback and conducting routine one-on-one meetings with employees
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Promoting interdepartmental cooperation
You should urge your team to work as closely as feasible across departments in addition to improving communication between workers and management. In addition to having a greater understanding of what their peers do, your team will benefit from hearing more about various working methods and perspectives.
3. Ask for feedback
Then don’t forget to acknowledge it and act on it. One method to enhance the employee experience is to foster a culture where people feel like they can speak up. When given the chance to use their creativity at work, people are more engaged. Co-creation is an effective strategy for fostering participation and enhancing workplace culture.
We use Doug Diamond's culture survey to establish a strategy for prioritizing our efforts and obtaining the resources we require to tackle our most pressing issues.
These evaluations are diagnostic in nature, and implementing a culture survey effectively necessitates effective communication, implementation, and action, with the end result being a stronger culture.
4. Recognize and celebrate wins frequently
Explain to managers the value and significance of micro-recognition so they may regularly and consistently acknowledge the work and accomplishments of their teams. For the purpose of enhancing business culture inside teams and throughout the entire organization, provide processes and tools that enable employees at all levels to recognize their colleagues.
According to Harvard Business Review, employee engagement is most strongly influenced by appreciation. Although financial rewards are always welcomed, recognition programs don't have to be pricey. Employers and executives can thank staff members publicly on social media. Employees seek to be treated with respect and gratitude. A simple thank you for a job well done, a birthday, or a work anniversary can be heartfelt and unforgettable.
5. Exemplify the culture your employees crave
To enhance organizational culture, create consistent patterns of conduct that foster a positive, inclusive, and sense of belonging. The desired behaviors you wish to see in your organization must be communicated by and exhibited by leaders at all levels. Employees will grow irritated by the leaders' hypocrisy if they don't exhibit the desired culture themselves.
Although managers may understand the need of investing in culture, it can be challenging to come up with initiatives that can increase inclusiveness, engagement, and culture. Yet small gestures like giving praise, discussing objectives, or demonstrating an interest in an employee's interests outside of the workplace can have a tremendous impact.
6. Plan meetings and events often
To bring people together, maintain a regular schedule of meetings and events inside your organization. This is crucial when numerous teams are dispersed or on hybrid schedules. You'll need to proactively plan specific time for staff members to bond around common interests.
Meetings of every kind, from networking events to brainstorming sessions, can boost culture. Consider virtual possibilities when making plans because most teams will have distant members. This will ensure that all employees are involved. You continuously show the value of inclusiveness and collaboration in your organizational culture by providing a space for employees to connect.
7. Address diverse and growing needs
Recognize the necessity to create strategies that can accommodate a variety of people and give each employee the chance to customize their own experience in light of the workplace's ever-increasing diversity.
Find out which channels employees prefer for receiving important company messages. To accommodate the demands of all employees, use numerous channels if necessary. Examining your present perk options is another strategy to enhance corporate culture. Because there are now employees from different generations working together, benefits packages are becoming increasingly varied and tailored to meet the requirements and expectations of all employees.
8. Encourage mentoring
Encourage mentoring between more seasoned workers to foster a more transparent workplace. Mentoring will not only involve your senior team members; it will also open doors for fresh personnel, who might gain a lot from a mentor's connections and expertise.
By sharing expertise, you're showing your team how much your business appreciates teamwork and how seriously other employees take their careers. Create a mentor buddy system where mentors are matched with new hires in the same department. As team members work to improve one another, team culture will advance as a result of implementing these concepts.
9. Conduct an exit survey
The best way to learn why employees leave your company is to conduct an exit interview or exit survey at the end of the employee's tenure with you. To reduce attrition, you can recognize trends, take action based on what you've learned, and make adjustments to your hiring processes, management practices, or business culture.
A successful departure interview produces useful information:
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Closes the employee/employer connection formally in a positive and beneficial way
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Gives information based on actual employee experiences in their work environment, team, management, role, and corporate culture
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Determines if the former employee would recommend your business to others
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You can see how this fits with the attrition risk profile of your firm if you comprehend their decision to quit
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Identifies any problems or weak points within the company
It's an opportunity to learn from the successes and failures of former workers. Face-to-face interactions, the use of forms, or an exit interview survey are all options for the procedure.
10. Assessing Your Company, Group, and Team Cultures
Assessing your organization from a behavioral perspective can help you gain insights into the cultures of your team, group, and firm. Companies all throughout the world use the tried-and-true behavioral assessments known as DiSC. People frequently fail to take their environment into account. However, every team or group's culture inside an organization has a significant impact on the overall culture. It is crucial to grasp the significance of group culture as well as the principles, difficulties, benefits, and drawbacks of one's own group. The organization can next investigate how to contribute most effectively inside their culture once it has this knowledge.
Even though DiSC does not touch every aspect of culture, it does aid individuals in understanding many crucial requirements, objectives, concerns, emotions, and behaviors that support it. Participants utilize the DiSC assessment tool to examine their group culture, comprehend all of its ramifications, and look into how they may contribute most successfully within that culture.
By reimagining the DISC model, Take Flight Learning has inspired and enabled people to become the highest version of themselves. Merrick Rosenberg’s relatable way of linking personality to Eagles, Parrots, Doves, and Owls, will allow you to see yourself in his stories and unlock the power of your personality to build stronger relationships and drive results. Using Merrick’s completely reimagined approach to understanding yourself, you will discover that self-awareness is easier than you think.
Final Thoughts
Operating a successful firm requires improving company culture. You can and should invest in team culture because it will enhance cooperation, communication, and many other aspects.
If you have any questions, concerns, or need assistance deciding which culture tips you should implement into your business, contact our friends Christine Pietrowicz-Joanis, Doug Diamond, and Steve Ferman for additional help. To view a recording of our most recent live stream on company culture examples that will help you stay ahead of the competition, visit our youtube channel. To learn more about Take Flight Learning or RCS Professional Services please visit www.rcsprofessional.com or www.takeflightlearning.com.
Sources:
https://www.zenefits.com/workest/the-real-meaning-of-company-culture/
https://www.ccoleadership.com/resource/6-steps-to-effectively-use-a-culture-survey/