The environment you build in your workplace goes beyond just health and safety. A positive work environment also has a positive workplace culture. As the leader of the company, it is your duty to ensure that the culture in your company supports everyone and is built on a set of values that can guide your company.
Workplace culture is defined as the values, beliefs and attitudes that guide your company. These factors set the expectations for how your employees should behave and interact with one another as they go about their daily responsibilities.
You need to create a good workplace culture because it also affects the types of potential employees you can bring into your company. Additionally, a positive workplace culture boosts the productivity, and engagement between your employees.
This article is here to help guide you in your journey to cultivating a workplace culture as the leader of your business.
Why is Workplace Culture Important?
It’s important to have a positive workplace culture because it can affect things such as employee experience, team morale, engagement in the workplace and job satisfaction. If you have a negative workplace culture, your employees will not be happy. This will lead to a decrease in job satisfaction and make it harder to retain employees.
Additionally, your workplace culture also translates to your customers. If you have a positive culture, you will be able to attract customers who will buy and return to buy some more. A negative work culture will make potential customers hesitate to do business with you.
Elements of Workplace Culture
According to research from MIT, the following have been identified as the 10 elements of culture that employees care about most:
- Employees want to feel respected.
- The company must have a supportive leadership team.
- The actions of the company leader must align with the core values of the company.
- Managers who promote a toxic culture.
- Being present to witness unethical behaviour.
- Employee benefits.
- Employee perks and amenities.
- The company must have opportunities for learning and professional development.
- There must be job security.
- The frequency and quality of all reorganisation.
Using these findings, you get a clear idea of what concerns all job seekers when it comes to workplace culture. Now, it’s time for tips on how you can create a positive workplace culture in your company.
How to Create a Good Workplace Culture in Your Business
There are a few things you can do to create a good and supportive workplace culture in your business.
1. Outline Your Core Values
The first thing you should aim to do is to clearly outline the core values of your business. Your core values should be the basis of everything that happens in your organisation. Once you have outlined them, ensure that your employees, HR and the leadership team are aligned with the values and that they contribute towards them.
2. Stick to a Type of Workplace Culture
As a business owner, you know what type of culture and environment you want to have in your company. When you choose your culture, you need to take every little detail into consideration. This includes the layout of the office, employee collaboration time and how all members of your leadership interact with all employees. Once you know what you want, you can draft policies and practices that will help you achieve your desired culture.
3. Develop a Zero-tolerance Policy
An important part of your workplace culture is having a strict zero-tolerance policy. This provides your employees with a space to speak about issues they have within the office and outside. This also means you need to provide your employees with resources to help them with any issues.
Additionally, a zero-tolerance policy means you must ensure that your HR has flexibility in their schedules to be available for any employee issues.
4. Employee Rewards Programme
Creating an employee rewards programme shows that you care about them and want to give them recognition for their hard work. This will encourage your employees to perform at high levels and make them feel wanted at the company. A rewards programme also creates friendly competition within the office which leads to high performances.
Additionally, you can reward your employees with social outings and team-building activities outside of the office.
5. Transparency
By promoting transparency within your organisation, it creates trust between you and your employees. This also helps to promote communication and collaboration between different departments and team members. Transparency within the workplace helps to create an environment where employees feel valued and heard.
6. Leverage Employee Feedback
A vital part of workplace culture is your employees. You need to always take into consideration any feedback given to you by your employees. They choose to bring their issues and pain points to you because they care about the company. Listening to their feedback gives you a chance to fix any issues quickly before they affect your employees negatively.
These tips are here to help you begin creating your own workplace culture. By creating a positive culture your company will attract the best employees, be a joyful place to work in and ultimately build more trust between your business and your customers.
