All companies, whether large or small, have their own culture. This refers to the overall environment of a company, embodied by its working conditions, values, ethics, and goals.
For example, some companies emphasize more on team-based efforts while others focus more on individual work. Overall, company culture has a significant effect not only on your company’s current employees but also your future potential candidates.
A 2012 research by Deloitte revealed that 94 percent of executives and 88 percent of employees believe that a distinct company culture is important for a company’s success.
Indeed, a business with well-reputed company culture is more likely to attract top talents and other high-qualified candidates. This increases the demand for job openings and also helps ensure that your team consists of individuals who can get the job done.
However, it can be difficult to properly assess your company’s current culture without help. In this regard, communication is key. Surveys, such as the employee satisfaction survey sample by Sparkbay, are paramount to learning more about your company and employees, as well as identifying specific areas to improve on. Building a positive company culture takes a lot of time and work.
Ways to Promote a Positive Workplace Culture at Your Company
To get started, you can use the following tips as a guideline.
1. Always consider your employees’ overall wellbeing
If you want to build a successful company, you need good employees. And employees can only consistently give their best when they are in good health. Whether it’s physically, emotionally, or mentally, you need to consider how your employees are doing in these areas.
Make sure to implement regulations and codes that take their wellbeing into account. Try to secure resources — both inside and outside the company — that employees can access to help take care of their minds and bodies. Some resources you can consider include an in-office counsellor or a partnership with the local gym.
2. Clearly define your company’s goals and values
Every company culture is also distinct. To help you get a clearer idea of your ideal company culture, take into account the following questions:
- What is the purpose of the company?
- What are the values the company wants to follow?
- What does the company hope to achieve someday?
After finding the answers to these core questions, it is imperative that you share and instil within employees the company’s values and goals. Learning the company’s values will help guide them in their daily tasks. On the other hand, setting goals encourages employees to work harder and cooperate with one another.
Additionally, it can also help with recruitment. When you have a distinct company culture, applicants can help discern if they will be a good fit in the company or not.
3. Highlight meaning and purpose
People instinctively look for meaning and purpose in life, and this applies to their jobs as well. Meaning is defined as the understanding of how one employee fits inside the company. This refers to the jobs that they do and how they contribute to the whole.
On the other hand, purpose refers to both company and personal goals. For the company, it might be reaching a certain amount of profit or prestige within the community. For employees, this can refer to their career path, including bonuses and promotions.
Meaning and purpose — whether it’s in work or life in general — helps fuel a person’s drive. In a company, this helps strengthen morale and encourages people to go to work every day.
4. Check your current company culture and grow from it
You don’t need to scrap your current company culture and start from the beginning. Instead, you can improve what your company already has. Company cultures can change over time. In that regard, you need to ask: do you want it to change positively or negatively?
To build a positive company culture, you need to foster open communication with employees. Just like with customers, conduct a scheduled survey and ask the employees on what aspects can be improved. Most importantly, be open to suggestions. Instead of grappling in the dark for solutions, consider your employees’ insights and inputs carefully.
5. Foster social relationships and connections
In school, students often prefer to do projects with friends and acquaintances. That’s because communication is a lot easier when you’re working with somebody you know, as opposed to a stranger. It’s the same in the workplace.
For your business to become successful, you need your people to communicate and work well together. Foster social connections by setting up lunch dates or scheduling a weekly dinner. You can also try opening different clubs to bring together people with similar hobbies and interests.
Company cultures vary from one workplace to another, and what works for another company may not necessarily work with you. To implement the proper regulations, research on current trends and studies pertaining to the workforce and take them into consideration.
Most importantly, communicate with your employees to help set up a better working environment that benefits all. With these tips, you will have a clearer idea of what kind of company you want to build, not only for your current employees but for future ones as well.