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A company’s culture can be the key determining factor in recruiting and retaining the most productive employees and keeping them motivated to continually perform at their best levels. Unfortunately, not enough companies are creating the kind of positive company culture that will keep their businesses truly competitive.
According to a recent report by TruPath: “64% of all employees do not feel they have a strong work culture.” And Harvard Business Review reports that “health care expenditures at high-pressure companies are nearly 50% greater than at other organizations” and that “disengaged workers had 37% higher absenteeism, 49% more accidents, and 60% more errors and defects.”
These sobering statistics should push any good company to re-assess their current culture.
If you want to ensure that you are creating a positive company culture – from the top leadership all the way through the ranks – here are 5 tips to help you start:
1. Create a unified mission and uphold company values
In order to build a positive company culture, you first need to make sure everyone in the company is aligned to its mission. You need everyone to be onboard and excited about the vision that is driving the company’s work.
You need clarity about the company’s mission, vision, and core values, and you want to communicate this message clearly with everybody who’s involved.
Ideally, everyone in the company should be enthusiastic, appreciative, and proud of the company’s culture. One of the best ways to make this happen is to actively enlist the buy-in support of all employees, empower them, and make sure to hold them accountable to the company’s values.
2. Establish trust and set a good example
One of the most important aspects of a strong company culture is respect. Everyone ought to be working together to treat others with the same respect with which they themselves would like to be treated. A respectful workplace generates trust, which is a cornerstone of any thriving culture.
Trust begins with the highest level of company leadership. When team members trust their leaders, it encourages productivity and accountability. Everyone needs to be holding themselves to a higher, unified company goal, not their own separate agendas.
As a leader, you should make a point to show your own commitment and passion, leading your team by example every day.
3. Encourage everyone to offer ideas and get involved
Active participation from everyone is central to a positive company culture. Employees at all levels should feel welcome and empowered to offer ideas and suggestions to help move the organization forward.
Effective communication drives the strongest company cultures. It is important to openly and continually communicate goals, changes, constructive feedback, and – most importantly – successes and encourage honest responses from everyone.
4. Offer opportunities for professional development and morale-boosting
The best companies encourage every employee to grow — both in their specific professional skill sets and in their overall holistic development. People are at the center of every thriving company culture.
While you may be tempted to implement a theory-driven model, don’t forget about the specific individuals who make up your organization. Employees who are happy and feel supported are more productive and ultimately more efficient in their work tasks. That’s why investing in a fitness session, guest speaker, or professional development opportunity can be so worthwhile for your company.
Even just forming a “Lunch Hour Development” committee and leaving it to your teams to lead sessions of their choosing can be effective in increasing morale.
5. Be flexible whenever possible and allow for remote working options.
Show your employees that you care about them as people, and offer them flexible options whenever possible. Everyone has a personal life and personal needs outside of work, and the more a company can respect those needs, the more its employees will be both able and driven to perform better at work.
One of the best ways to demonstrate flexibility is to offer remote working options whenever possible. Trusting and empowering your employees to manage their own schedules often leads to higher productivity levels over the long-term.
Try testing out a remote work policy and making sure to revisit it periodically to ensure it works for everyone.
With a positive company culture, your employees will no longer be isolated in silos but connected as a team, which should boost not only productivity and revenues but everyone’s overall happiness too.
If you need help financing your growing company to take it to greater levels of productivity and positive results, just reach out and we’ll be happy to help!
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