The company culture you create should be a core set of values, attitudes and beliefs that guide your business. You display this strongly in the way that you treat your customers and employees. Moreover, it will greatly influence the type of candidates you attract for new positions and potential new clients. Irrespective of how big or small your business may be, creating a culture of positivity will undoubtedly set you up for success.
Perhaps some of you are wondering, what is a positive work culture? And how can you implement this into your own organisation? To achieve this, I believe that some core values must be established first. The onboarding process is the best chance for your employees to understand what the company culture is. As a result, they know what they should expect from themselves and how they should act to follow the values of the company. The company’s ethos will be a set of core values that are the foundation for everything positive that flows within, the values that set the tone for the company’s overall operations, in essence. A solid set of core values will allow leaders and employees to distinguish between the most and least significant factors, and all decisions will be influenced by them.
Set Clear Goals and Deadlines
It is more likely that employees or teams who have a clear understanding of what is expected of them in terms of quality of work and when it is due will flourish, since they have tangible goals to aim for. Providing feedback regarding specific projects should be encouraged from leaders since it will enable people to voice concerns and suggest ways of completing projects more efficiently.
Allow for Fun and Humour
In my opinion, this is an important one that employers often overlook. In allowing for fun and humour in the workplace, employees will be more relaxed and comfortable in their surroundings. Work can be a stressful place to be at times and working on multiple projects can often result in people getting flustered. By making a difficult decision more light-hearted, even the most stressful situation can be mitigated. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take your job seriously, however, by encouraging a bit more fun and humour around the workplace, it will instil a greater sense of belonging for your employees. How does the saying go, ‘’Laughter truly is one of the best medicines’’
Flexibility
The fact is, life happens and stuff gets in the way sometimes. Employers shouldn’t focus on discipline or repercussions for unforeseen emergencies or responsibilities. Sometimes people struggle to balance their personal and professional lives, in this case do your best to come up with a compromise that allows for them to be productive at work without sacrificing their personal lives as much as possible, such as offering flexible hours or a hybrid approach. As an employer, you will gain a lot more respect from employees by offering flexibility in their work, because they will appreciate that you understand difficult situations arise in life and that you are on hand to offer solutions to them.
Business Insider (2017) published a list of the 20 best business cultures in the UK which echoes the above points, that how you treat your employees and customers matters a great deal. The full list can be found here. There is an interesting trend you can see with most companies included on this list, that backs up this statement. Which is that they put great emphasis on people – harnessing a no blame culture, freedom, respect, appreciation, and empowerment.
There is no question that positive work cultures are more productive, primarily because when businesses cultivate positive, virtuous cultures, they achieve higher levels of effectiveness across the board as it generally results in more committed and hardworking staff members that aren’t just seen as ‘cogs in the machine’.