6 actionable ways to improve company culture
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What’s the company culture like in your organisation? What you might have said years ago might not apply now, especially as many organisations have shifted to remote working since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Company culture is a constant work in progress because as a company evolves, so does its people.
Every culture is unique and that’s the beauty of it. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are some easy, actionable steps you can take to improve your company culture today.
1. Be more transparent
Trust is truly the foundation of any great company culture. If you want an open and transparent company culture, your first step should be to ensure your team has the tools to do so. A staggering 50% of employees say bosses sharing information and data has a significantly positive impact on productivity and motivation.
Outdated communication tools can be a major barrier to transparency, especially if you’re working across different offices, departments and remote teams. Companies that communicate more effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain the best employees.
It’s crucial your team has an easy and efficient way to connect with one another to share information. With this foundation in place, the other improvements highlighted in this blog have a high chance of succeeding.
2. Share successes and challenges
If you want to begin improving your company culture, start with this. Be more open with sharing and recognising the successes of your organisation and your teams – the benefits are almost instantaneous.
It’s undoubtedly a huge motivation boost for teams to hear the positive results of their hard work, collaboration and effort. Who doesn’t like to be celebrated for their contributions?
What’s equally as important is being honest about the challenges you and your company are facing. This is a prime opportunity for the team to come up with solutions together, ultimately making them more invested in the outcome and its triumph.
This doesn’t mean you need to share every detail of every challenge you come up against. However, when it comes to solving complicated obstacles, several minds – especially when those perspectives are from a range of diverse backgrounds – are more compelling than one.
3. Advocate employee autonomy
Has anybody ever said they enjoy being micromanaged at work? It’s inefficient and does little to demonstrate trust in your employees.
Embracing your team’s autonomy, especially when remote working, allows them to shift their thinking from being held accountable to embracing accountability in a whole new light.
There are a few ways you can inspire employee autonomy such as moving away from the structured 40-hour workweek to creating decision-making opportunities for everyone. It can even be as simple as giving your team the tools they need to report incidents should they arise to show just how much you value their wellbeing.
4. Regularly recognise and reward
Employees who don’t feel recognised are twice as likely to quit their job in a year while the top 20% of companies with a recognition-rich culture have a 31% lower turnover rate.
Once-a-year feedback doesn’t provide an employee with the tools they need to improve and grow. Make sure that senior management and team leaders feel empowered to reward their teams, as this can be a small but mighty way of ensuring employees feel more valued.
Giving frequent, candid feedback is a benefit to everyone. You can reward the behaviours and actions you want to promote in your organisation as they occur, which just encourages more of the same.
5. Encourage peer recognition
Employee recognition doesn’t have to come just from the top, or from line managers. It’s often even more impactful when recognition comes from all around and not just the leadership team. From directors, managers and peers, drawing attention to their achievements can create a domino effect of positivity.
Peer recognition is actually one of the most effective methods of infusing recognition into your culture. It’s also a great way to organically foster stronger relationships between coworkers which goes a long way towards building a fantastic company culture.
6. Reiterate there’s no ‘I’ in team
As cliché as it sounds, the modern workforce is increasingly motivated to succeed. This can often mean focusing entirely on their responsibilities to hit their targets and neglecting the wider team.
Unsurprisingly, 86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication the cause of workplace failures. A shift in mentality from working as a siloed individual to working as a unified team can make an enormous difference in the results of your work.
Today, feeling a sense of purpose in work seems more important than ever for the workforce. That’s why the key to implementing tangible change at your company is making it clear what your ethos is, which is easier said than done.
Core values aren’t just a list of bullet points on your About Us page. Your company culture defines who you are and what you value as an organisation, which is why evaluating your existing company culture and identifying what truly matters to you and those who you employ is key.
What is your workplace culture really like? And is it the one you want?
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