When we think about the common workplace, a few core items come to mind. Employees working hard, meetings taking place, projects being completed and issues being resolved. For a company to thrive, there must be specific processes put into place. Equally important, the organization must employ high quality talent that will meet deadlines, complete tasks and act as a valuable asset for the company in which they work.
It is common for an organization to work hard in the early years to get their business up and running. Then, they spend time recruiting and hiring the right talent and assembling the teams they need to move forward. Everyone is moving so fast to complete tasks and projects that there is not much time for anything else. This may produce a successful and profitable company. However, if you are not careful, you may create an organization with no culture, or worse, a toxic one.
No one ever sets out to create a negative company culture. There has never been a CEO who openly planned to have a workforce of disgruntled employees or a book of broken processes. These situations arise when companies are too focused on the projects being worked on and do not give enough time and attention to people working on them. Deliverables might be completed on time, but one must dig deeper to understand how your workers felt during the entire process.
Creating a positive culture is deeper than the work being done on a daily basis. It’s how your employees feel when they arrive at work and when they leave at the end of a long day. It’s about how they act when something goes wrong or they have a suggestion for improvement. Do they feel confident about speaking up or have they been conditioned to keep quiet based on past experiences?
Every business leader should want their companies to enjoy a positive culture and work environment. However, for some, spending time and money on building one may seem like a luxury you cannot afford to assign precious budget dollars too. However, if you ignore this crucial part of your company, you will be forced to spend your money, anyway.
A report conducted by Built In presents some very surprising and alarming stats about company retention. Nearly 25% of your employees are likely to quit if you have a poor company culture. According to Forbes, Millennials are willing to give up thousands of dollars in salary to work for a company that has a reputation of a positive company culture. The cost of replacing an employee with a new one can soar past $4,000 per individual.
What Makes A Good Company Culture?
Now that we have determined that investing in creating and maintaining your company culture is financially prudent, let us explore what exactly you should be looking to achieve. The right culture is one where people feel empowered to do their best work. They feel supported throughout each project and know they can go to their manager or co-workers for advice anytime. They are not working in fear because they know mistakes happen and they will not be disciplined or terminated for them. Employees working in a positive culture are often in a good mood and leave the office on most days feeling respected and satisfied.
The second half of this equation is the processes and procedures you implement and maintain. Any task that is done regularly should have a standard process for all team members to follow. They should resolve most issues without incident because the employee either knows exactly what to do or who to report the problem too. This type of structure helps avoid setbacks, reducing aggravation and prevents communication issues amongst team members.
Develop Your Current Employees
Your employees spend a considerable amount of time and energy working for your company. If they are going to care about the future of your business, they want to know you care about the future of their career. The best way to show them you care about their growth is to invest in personal and professional development training. A positive culture is built by people who feel appreciated and feel like their growth and development is being taken seriously.
The key to deciding what types of training to offer is to listen to your people. What types of soft skills do they want to learn? You can also talk to your department heads and determine what hard skills such as certifications and software training would increase productivity. Once you understand what your teams need to succeed, you can show that you are listening and that you care by investing some of the profits they help produce back into their growth and development.
Prefect the Onboarding Process
Reports indicate that one of the major factors in whether an individual stays with a company long term in their onboarding experience. It is key to remember what is is like for a new employee. They are walking into a foreign office, to work on unfamiliar projects with brand new co-workers. This can be extremely overwhelming in the best of circumstances. If this individual is forced to learn things on the fly due to a poor onboarding process, they will never stand a chance.
Before a new team member arrives for their first day, everything should be set up for them. This includes all the equipment they will use and the log-ins for the programs they need access to. The manager should sit down with their new hire to explain the company’s structure and important facts they should be aware of. Then, they should walk them around the office and introduce them to the other employees. Lastly, your new employees first week should be filled with one-on-one meetings focused on learning the processes and procedures they need to do their job.
Listen To Your People
As a leader, it is impossible to know what is going on in each corner of your company. You are not involved with the day to day decisions that are involved in running each department. Therefore, you must give your employees a platform to inform you and other members of the management team to express their concerns and ask their questions. Employees who are heard on a regular basis will feel respected. It will also allow for quicker conflict resolution and less mistakes being made as a result.
ScheduleTeam Meetings
Each team should be meeting on a weekly basis to provide status updates. This is a place for each individual to present what they are working on and reach out to other team members for assistance. It is also a place to voice concerns over issues that have arisen in the previous week. This type of open forum allows problems to be resolved quickly. The alternative is trying to manage a team that unbeknownst to you is dealing with several aggravating issues while trying to complete their deliverables on time.
At times, an employee may not be comfortable voicing a concern in front of others. Therefore, it is key that managers schedule a weekly one-on-one session with each team member. To get the most out of this type of meeting, be sure to ask a specific question about how a project is going, are they experiencing any issues and is there anything you can do to make things run better. These types of pointed questions are designed to learn what’s going on with your team and when you need to step in to resolve a problem or improve a process.
Show Your Appreciation
The idea that a paycheck is enough to show your workers your appreciation is an outdated and dangerous practice. There are several companies that would be happy to provide a regular paycheck to your high quality talent. It is possible they would be willing to offer more money on top of a better working culture. By the time you are aware your employees are looking elsewhere, it becomes too late. They have already accepted an offer and have given notice.
Showing employee appreciation is much more than letting them wear jeans on Friday and having a yearly Christmas party at a local restaurant. Genuine appreciation is congratulating a team on a big win or an individual for closing a sale. If you know employees have been working extra hard on a project, be sure to make it a point to thank them publicly and reward them in some way. It is also about being reasonable about life events such as leaving early for an appointment or staying home with your sick child.
Conclusion
Building and maintaining a positive company culture is hard work. It requires time and attention from all levels of the company. However, the rewards for a great company culture are immense. Your talent stays longer and your company and brand benefit as a result. By creating a plan and sticking to it, you can build a positive company culture that the best talent in your industry will want to work in.
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