A positive workplace culture is essential for employee well-being and a thriving business. 🤝 In order for productivity, motivation, and efficiency to soar, workplaces must create an environment where employees feel comfortable to collaborate, participate, and grow.📈
Positive or negative, your workplace culture exists if you cultivate it intentionally or leave it to chance. Your culture is like the collective personality of your team. It’s the manager when the manager is not present.
Employees are the most vocal proponents of a company’s culture.👩💻
Employee engagement, workplace satisfaction, and a deep sense of organizational affiliation or belonging are advantages in developing a good team culture. People are glad to work for and be affiliated with an organization that has a positive culture. They are attracted to it, and as a result, they become ambassadors for the organization.⭐️
Do you want to improve your workplace culture? In the following sections, we’ll look at the role of company culture and how to incorporate it into your workplace environment.
What role does company culture play?
The significance of corporate culture cannot be ignored. With the right company culture, you can achieve your objectives by keeping your team aligned while introducing new stakeholders. According to statistics, “94% of entrepreneurs and 88% of job seekers say that healthy work culture is vital for success.” 🤩
Company culture is critical for employee participation; the more engaged and aligned your team, the better the customer and stakeholder satisfaction. It extends beyond the walls of your team and into your community, where it often plays its biggest role in attracting new business opportunities, employees, and other vendors in alignment.👍
New generations entering the workforce see a positive company culture as a deciding factor in where to work and if to remain within a workplace. While sufficient pay still ranks as the number one concern, the new generation sees workplace culture and being emotionally connected to their work as more important than prior generations.
Source: Spectrio
What are the different types of company culture?
It was only in the 1980s that company culture became an area of serious interest to scientists. However, from this point on, it became clear that organizational science could not ignore culture. 👭👩🏾🤝👨🏽
Professors Robert E. Quinn and Kim S. Cameron, both leading academics and authors in the field, have conducted extensive research on company culture and identified different types.
Here are the four types of organizational culture they identified:
1. Clan Culture
This culture, often known as family culture, promotes teamwork and collaboration. 👨👩👦 Leaders in a Clan Culture are viewed as mentors or even parental figures, with the organization held together by loyalty and tradition.
Employees are seen as family members, and great value is focused on relationships, morale, participation, and consensus.
2. Hierarchy Culture
Formal and structured, these controlling organizations have a dominating company culture that relies heavily on rules and procedures to hold the team together. Leaders have strong egos and are proud when processes run smoothly. 💪 Employees enjoy predictability and are rewarded by sticking to established procedures and ignoring innovation as a risk.
3. Market Culture
This culture, often referred to as a competitive culture, is where achieving a goal is given the greatest focus 🥅. Leaders may be tough and demanding in the pursuit of improved KPIs (key performance indicators) and place all emphasis on achievement. Employees at competitive companies want to succeed, get recognition, and continuously exceed project objectives.
4. Adhocracy Culture
Often referred to as a creative culture, it promotes an entrepreneurial ethic. Leaders are seen as innovative and encourage experimentation. Employees often try out new ideas and are rewarded for taking risks. 🗣This is the culture in common within startups, where innovation, learning, and development are essential for long-term success.📈
How can you improve company culture?🧐
If you want to improve your organizational culture and create a positive working environment, there are ways of doing so.
Here are some of the ways you can improve company culture:
1. Determine your core values📝
Take the time to determine your company’s core values. Make a list of them, schedule time to revisit them periodically, and display them somewhere for the entire team to see and remain vigilant towards.
Employees seek inspiration from the company’s founders and existing employees. It’s crucial to create a clear purpose where everyone understands their role in the bigger picture. This enables consistent decision-making across all levels of the organization.⭐️
2. Lead by example🧑🏫
How the leaders act in a company sets the tone for everyone else. If you want your employees to act a certain way, you need to be an effective role model. Model the values and behaviors you want to see in others, and they’ll appreciate your effort and show you the same respect back.
Leading by example is essential. According to a survey, there’s a “70% difference in culture quality between companies with lousy and great team leaders.”
Demonstrate positive traits like accountability, transparency, interest, and a commitment to the company. Highlight the importance of being productive, efficient, and motivated, and make sure you treat everyone with respect.🤝
Source: Teamstage
3. Hire for culture👩💼
Prioritize culture over skillset when hiring, and hire based on reliable references and trial periods. Check to see if your new hire is a suitable fit for your organization’s culture.
People naturally drawn to your company’s culture are more likely to be self-motivated and achieve success with less supervision. During the trial period, set some short-term tasks and see how they fit.
Be deliberate when interviewing post-trial period, asking the new hire how they feel they fit within the culture. Some companies pay people to leave at this point to encourage only the strong culture fit to remain.
4. Encourage employee development🤩
Encourage employees to take on challenging tasks and projects, as this will help them to develop and grow with the business. Fostering a culture for team members to take the initiative helps generate new ideas and improve processes. According to a study, 63% of employees who quit their jobs cited a lack of advancement opportunities as their primary reason for leaving.
Adaptable and flexible employees inspire others to see change as progress. It’s vital to create a learning-oriented culture in your organization if you want to unlock creativity.👩🎨
Provide opportunities for people to progress. This will motivate your employees and give them a sense of purpose. If they’re committed to their job, they’ll enjoy the opportunity to develop their skills and job roles. This will create a positive work culture as employees will feel positive and motivated with an enhanced skillset and the opportunity to grow. 👍
Source: Pew Research Centre
5. Recognize, reward, and appreciate contributions🏆
Make sure you reward people’s efforts and contributions. Celebrate any milestones within the company and express your gratitude for your hard work. If your employees feel recognized, they’ll feel happier at work. This will contribute to a more positive work or office environment.🏅
According to Forbes, “Employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.”
Furthermore, soft talents such as kindness, active listening, and giving feedback are examples of soft skills that can help or hurt a company’s culture. Consider the recruit’s personality traits, as well as their level of experience.
Source: Forbes
6. Promote a healthy work-life balance🙌
Promote a healthy work-life balance for your employees by offering flexible arrangements where possible. Discourage your employees from working long hours, as this can lead to stress, job dissatisfaction, and burnout. 😖
Instead, promote using effective scheduling software and time and attendance programs. If your employees feel like their time is valued and respected, they’ll feel happier at work.😁
A recent study showed that, “87% of employees expect their employer to support them in balancing work and personal commitments.” So, ensuring you encourage and respect the balance is important.
7. Encourage lifelong learning🧠
Change is constantly happening for all organizations. If not internal change, then external factors will change and eventually result in more significant internal change.
Leaders should create/maintain a safe space for employees to experiment and fail. Rewarding and encouraging learning ensures your team remains in a growth mindset and is responsive to change.
8. Use technology to your advantage💻
Now more than ever, organizations must be experimenting with new technology. Technology is constantly evolving, and having a company culture of trailing new tools no matter if you migrate to them or drop them, keeping your eye on what new tools become available that may help you execute better is a great way to fight complacency and constantly innovate.🖥
Online work and communication is becoming increasingly popular. For shift patterns or flexible remote work, tools that improve “asynchronous” communication are now better for employee engagement and performance.
9. Encourage open communication💬
It’s critical to foster a culture of open but respectful communication. When employees are empowered with the knowledge that open communication can bring, better decisions can be made that are consistent with the values of the organization.💡
A lack of communication could lead to issues within the company. According to a survey over 40% of workers said that “poor communication reduces trust both in leadership and in their team.”
You could consider incorporating effective messaging software to open up channels of communication.📱
Organizations that do not encourage open collaboration are likely to harbor institutional blindness (willful blindness). This is where stakeholders are aware of issues, though not feeling empowered to discuss them, and so they remain silent only to allow that issue to grow unchecked.
These issues can be trivial, but they can also be the demise of even the largest of organizations.
10. Find inspiration🤩
Identify the type of culture you have or want and find a successful organization already executing with that style. Studying what has worked with real-life examples is a great way to learn and experiment with similar things in your organization.
Source: People Insight
Conclusion
Creating a positive workplace culture is essential for business success. In a thriving environment where everyone feels valued, appreciated, and respected, the input from employees will soar.🚀
By setting a good example, encouraging communication, promoting a healthy work-life balance, and determining core values for employees to meet, you’ll create a healthy, productive, and positive working environment.✅
Putting workplace culture first will take your business to new heights, so why not give it a go? Follow our tips or check out our features and resources to streamline your company.
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