Workplace Culture Tips
While you may feel like workplace culture is a phenomenon that evolves naturally, you have a great deal of control in shaping it as an employer. Therefore, you must take steps to shape it the right way. A negative workplace culture means you:
- Will not get the most from your employees
- Are more likely to have a high level of staff turnover
- Will probably find it harder to achieve your business goals.
With this in mind, here are some ways to create a positive workplace culture with strong values.
Create a safe working environment
First, a safe working environment is one in which your employees are physically secure. This is one of your primary duties as an employer, and you must take it seriously. A safe working environment also means employees feel comfortable speaking out and expressing their opinions. So, you must have plenty of meetings with an open forum feel. You want staff members to feel comfortable sharing new ideas and confident enough to say when things could be done better.
Keep your employees engaged
Employee engagement can be monitored much easier these days thanks to software from companies like inpulse.com, and you must keep these levels high if an employee feels they are being listened to and will be more likely to put in extra work. There are plenty of different ways of doing this. First, you can ensure they have a varied and exciting job role. You also need to ensure they have clear goals to work towards and they have access to regular feedback. While consistency is good in a business, it is a good idea to shake things up occasionally – perhaps with a training or team-building day.
Provide positive employee benefits
A higher salary isn’t the only benefit the staff seeks. The new employee searches for companies with an engaging office environment that offer flexible working hours and take their mental and physical health seriously by offering free gym membership, fresh fruit, etc. A generous holiday allowance and sickness policy will also likely go down well. Employee benefits also demonstrate that a certain level of trust has been conferred by your business, which staff notice and appreciate.
It is easy for a culture of negativity to seep into an office, but you can take action against it. Of course, fixing the culture of a workplace is not something that can be done overnight. Taking one small step at a time often adds to the more significant change you want to achieve. At the same time, you shouldn’t rest and think that workplace culture is ‘fixed’. As businesses get bigger, their cultures change and become harder to manage. Unfortunately, too many bosses don’t take this seriously and allow their company to go downhill. Keeping these three main points in mind is a great starting point that will help to keep your business on track.
