9 Best Practices To Improve Your Company Culture
Have you ever come across an organization where the employees can take a good nap when they need it or play indoor games during office hours? This ensures flexibility concerning the place of work and timing.
Though it may appear to be impossible, that’s not the case. There exist numerous organizations in the market across the globe where management is finding ways to retain creative and talented employees.
Guess what they are paying attention to? Workplace culture!
Company culture focuses on how individuals in an organization communicate and interact with one another. Organizations need to improve their work culture to retain their employees and maintain a growth-oriented culture.
Pinpointing exactly where you need to work on will help you create an enticing place for your employees. In this post, let’s find out how to improve company culture in your organization.
Encourage transparency:
Workplace culture consists of aspects that are not tangible. However, that does not mean that your employee’s emotions must remain invisible to management. Providing a platform where your employees can share their inspirations, personalities, and stories are essential to developing a close-knit communicative team.
Maintaining an attitude of transparency will enable communications to flow through effectively in the future. Transparency helps build loyalty, productivity, and trust among team members, which are essential for the growth of an organization.
Promote ownership at work:
Avoid checking every hour on the team members who work under your supervision. This does not portray the sign of great leadership. It may result in resentment and inefficiency in completing the assigned task on time.
Asking your subordinates to take ownership will encourage them to take responsibility for the tasks they’re entrusted with. It’s advisable to promote ownership at all levels inside the corporate structure.
Flexible timings:
There exists flexibility in timings in specific organizations for some employees based on their work type. They’re given the deadlines and schedules for the project, wherein they can take their own time to complete the tasks assigned. This type of flexibility motivates the employees to be productive and helps retain creative talents in the company.
Most global organizations have adopted this culture to cater to the needs of international customers. As part of employee benefits, flexible working hours and schedules hold vital importance. This is because it informs the employees that you acknowledge their work and value their time. Also, identifying if the employees need to be present in the office or whether they can work from home would turn out to be beneficial.
Follow the open-door policy:
Have you come across organizations where the manager sits in an office, and the workers below them hesitate to approach them for even getting a sick leave approval? This type of hierarchy can be demotivating to work in. Following an open door policy where your subordinates feel comfortable approaching, will result in a healthy and positive corporate culture.
By making yourself approachable will help decrease the differences and disparity among your team members. Moreover, it ensures the smooth flow of knowledge, views, and ideas that will enable the growth of the organization
Invest in financial wellbeing:
Most of the employees suffer some sort of stress when it comes to their finances. Experiencing financial stress results in lower productivity levels due to high healthcare costs, greater absenteeism, and distracted employees.
Offer your employees with effective services that will help reduce their stress. This is possible by training them on balancing their finances, tackling debts, and reorganizing their financial lives. It will also help boost your corporate culture as it improves your employee’s morale and productivity.
Promote a collaborative environment:
Creating a collaborative workplace culture does not take place within a day. Collaboration requires loyalty and trust from all levels, from top management to the bottom level. Your employees must feel confident in taking risks as they know their mistakes won’t be indefinitely held against them.
For fresh recruits, encouraging mentorship opportunities will nurture trust in them from day one. To develop this type of relationship, your employees must experience a sense of belonging within the organization where their efforts are fully supported and appreciated.
Embrace simple gestures:
Actively expressing gratitude is beneficial to maintain a positive corporate culture. Studies show that using simple words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ makes individuals feel valued and respected.
Also, sending a note of appreciation to a team member who completed a challenging task is the best way to acknowledge them and make them aware that their efforts matter. Learn to express gratitude and train your employees to do the same. Practice it daily by saying it to your colleagues face-to-face as it enhances face value.
Pay attention to co-workers:
Lending an ear to your colleagues’ various queries and helping them resolve their issues makes them feel that they’re valued and heard. This is a significant workplace culture that needs to be cultivated and adopted by every organization. Without a strong and productive team, it’s not possible to complete any project or task assignment.
Hence, it would be great to cultivate a corporate culture where listening to subordinates and peers is essential. In doing so, you will address most of the issues and see wonders taking place in your company.
Empowerment:
Avoid being a team supervisor who prefers to sign every single document that comes out from the outlet. Also, it’s essential to avoid getting involved in all the activities in your organization.
Instead, encourage and motivate the employees working under you to exhibit authority or power to do their tasks successfully. This will not only boost their morale but also give them confidence in doing their day-to-day assignments. Empowerment is one of the best tools in maintaining a well-balanced corporate culture.
Conclusion
Now that you’re aware of the importance of improving your corporate culture, you need to implement company culture training. It’s impossible to retain creative and talented employees by merely offering them lucrative benefits and high salaries. Understanding your employees and being supportive is essential to run a successful organization. The workplace culture of each organization depicts the energy and power of the employees working in it.