There are a lot of benefits to keeping a healthy and engaging company culture, that don’t come down to having a happy set of staff members. In fact, a lot of these benefits are for the business in general. It’s important for the company overall to encourage a healthy company culture, for many reasons. You’ll avoid high turnover, which uses up resources, you’ll boost productivity, and you’ll gain more creative solutions to problems and products. So, how do you, as a team manager, encourage an engaging company culture? We explore here.
The Importance of Company Culture
As we mentioned, company culture affects a lot of things, but it’s also made up of a lot of vague elements that will need to be tackled to create a better overall culture in the office. These elements are made up of the values, behaviours and shared vision of the organisation, as well as the social and psychological environment of the company. You want a company culture that aims to encourage employee engagement in order to improve productivity, creativity and retention.
But the most important reason to encourage a healthy company culture is to gain and retain top talent. You can improve overall business performance with an attractive company culture obvious in the hiring process, which will also encourage company loyalty.
Leadership’s Role in Shaping Culture
So, how do you get a healthy company culture? Well, start by looking inward. Company culture is a reflection of leadership, so managers must embody the values and behaviours they wish to see in their teams. When making policy decisions, do not expect anything of your employees that you wouldn’t do yourself.
Practice open and honest communication in order to build trust and ensure that your employees feel valued and in the know. Create some outlet for employees to share their thoughts (preferably anonymously) and leaders can offer constructive feedback.
Promote Inclusivity and Diversity
It’s also important to keep the Equality Act 2010 in mind in just about every decision. Create policies and programs that encourage diverse perspectives, from the hiring process to promotions and training. Ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, are included and respected. Diversity fosters innovation, so it will be a perk for everyone. So celebrate cultural differences with workshops, events, and initiatives in order to create a stronger team with a wider viewpoint.
Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork
Another important element of a healthy workplace culture is teamwork, which has to be fostered. There is the theory of where to place people in the workplace for example. Pods with walls between staff members were designed to force staff to focus and not waste time, but it’s also creating a more isolating workplace experience, where ideas cannot freely be exchanged. If you want to encourage innovation over productivity, an open-plan space is ideal for your team. Encourage collaboration between different departments so that they can naturally come to more innovative solutions and a stronger community.
You can encourage this with regular team-building exercises and recognising and rewarding efforts to collaborate between your team members.
Focus on Employee Well-being
Another aspect of an attractive company culture is the well-being of the employee. Happy staff, happy culture. If you are only encouraging doing something in the name of the company, your staff will start to feel disillusioned and unseen with no reward.
Think about work-life balance. It’s all the rage right now for good reason. Employees are enjoying making their job work around life, rather than forcing life to work around their job, which often doesn’t work. You’ll avoid burnout and increase job satisfaction by promoting policies and practices that support a healthy work-life balance. Flexible working hours go a long way to aid this which in turn will make your employees more engaged and satisfied at work.
Invest in Professional Development
And then there is the job itself to think about. Your staff members don’t want to be doing the same thing forever and will feel a lot more secure and valued if they can go through some form of professional development. Foster a culture where continuous learning is encouraged and supported, keeping employees motivated and skilled. You can offer long-term career growth with training, mentoring, and clear advancement pathways.
Additionally, remember to recognise and reward good work and employees who take initiative. This will reinforce better work down the line and make employees feel valued.
Conclusion
There are a lot of things that go into a healthy company culture, and it doesn’t look as much like the Coca-Cola Hands Around the World ad as you might think. It means initiatives, policies, and ultimately treating staff like human beings.