Improving company culture can be tricky when you’re trying to figure it out on the fly.
Did you ever head into the kitchen as a kid when your parents weren’t looking to chuck a whole bunch of ingredients together, hoping it will turn into a Twinkie or a chocolate cake. No?
Okay well, some kids are a little weirder than others. Suffice it to say those little experiments tend to mess up the microwave and drive up your mother’s blood pressure rather than resulting in delicious, freshly-baked treats.
The point is that in life some things cannot be winged. While there are plenty of areas in which humans can make things up as they go along without wreaking too much havoc (modern art, jazz, parenting – kidding!) certain things will only ever work if you plan it properly.
Case in point: transforming company culture.
At a time when we know that companies that invest in employee experience are four times more profitable than those who don’t, and that highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, it seems pretty obvious that company culture should be front and centre if you wish your business to thrive in 2020.
So, today, we’ll share with you our tried-and-tested checklist for fostering a positive culture at your place of work so your team members may feel valued, supported, recognised and inspired to help you take your enterprise to brave new heights in the coming year.
Here goes! Your company culture transformation checklist:
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Take a look around
Start at the very beginning – take a look around the office and take note of what you see. Are you seeing smiles and excited exchanges? Or do people seem tired, bored and run down. You can tell a lot about the health of company culture by simply taking a good look around when you enter an office; in fact, many job seekers do this when they go for an interview and are far less likely to accept an offer from a company where employees seemed unhappy in general.
Read more: Retaining top talent with an eNPS – what you need to know.
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Address simmering negativity
Ideally, you want your office to be a place that is completely absent of malicious gossip, and where employees will actively discourage negative thinking and behaviour among their co-workers. If there is an undercurrent of ‘us and them’ going on, you need to address it ASAP before it causes irreparable riffs within your business.
Read more: 10 Things that stop employee engagement in its tracks.
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Encourage clear and collaborative communication
Happy employees thrive on frequent, open dialogue between management and staff, as well as regular, honest and constructive feedback. Co-workers should treat each other with respect and really listen to one another. The opinions and experience of all team members should be of equal value. You also want to ensure that the decision makers within your enterprise remain open to input that could lead to innovation at all times, and that credit will be given where credit is due.
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Recognise and reward employee engagement consistently
Truly great corporate cultures always include a strong focus on the recognition and reward of positive employee contributions and behaviour. When your workforce knows that extra effort and achievements will be noticed and lead to some nice incentives, they are a lot more likely to walk the extra mile and bring their A-game. Similarly, your culture should be flexible and supportive enough to leave room for mistakes, and address any issues that may arise in a constructive way. A company in which employees are scared to make mistakes won’t ever foster the kind of creativity that leads to landmark business ideas.
Read more: Employee Recognition: The ultimate kickstart for a great company culture.
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Support a healthy work-life balance
Missed deadlines, stressed employees and midnight-oil burning all point to one thing – an unhealthy work-life balance. If all your employees are doing is working, you can expect regular burnouts and that’s not good for anyone. You can help by ensuring that the workload is shared equally among your workforce and there are adequate hands on deck to get everything done at an acceptable pace.
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Check on churn
How regularly are you employing new people because others have elected to seek out greener pastures? If this is more often than you would like (and it’s costing your business a lot of money), you need to find out why it’s happening. Conduct thorough exit interviews and learn first-hand why your folks are fleeing the scene. Employees are far more likely to dish out the true dirt when they already have one foot out of the door.
Following this checklist when you address the way your employees feel and behave in the work environment will allow you to transform your company culture from the inside out. Just to recap, your first steps should be to:
- Gauge the emotional temperature of your enterprise.
- Stop any lingering negativity in its tracks.
- Boosting internal communication.
- Recognising and rewarding positive employee contributions.
- Assisting employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance
- Addressing high employee turnover immediately.
Following these guidelines will definitely help you to lay the foundations for a strong culture that will serve your company well in the years to come.
Are you serious about improving your company culture? Why don’t you get the ball rolling with our employee recognition platform for free?
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