What constitutes a company culture?
Company culture is the values and behaviors of a business that define its social and psychological environment. Essential, it is the personality of a business. If you want to foster a growth mindset within your employees, the culture has to provide that framework for them to thrive.
Why establishing and reinforcing a positive culture is important
It is the backbone of every business and without a positive culture, your employees will struggle to find value in their work. The following are some benefits of nurturing a positive culture:
Recruitment: A company that exhibits a positive culture will attract talented people that are looking for a place to establish their careers rather than a place that will act as a stepping-stone.
Employee Loyalty and Productivity: Employees are more likely to stay at a workplace if they feel accepted and enjoy coming in every day. These type of employees are also very likely to be dedicated and productive.
Collaboration: A positive work culture will encourage effective collaboration and open communication.
Employee Morale: Working in a positive environment will predictably make employees happier and less stressed.
All of this in turn will have an impact on employee performance and by extend, your bottom line.
Where Does Culture Start? Leadership
The leadership you provide will help build and nurture the company's culture. The effectiveness of your leadership will determine if that culture is by default or a part of a purposeful effort to guide and mold the culture itself. Culture is not tangible, however, so it often gets pushed to the bottom of the task list while focusing on the daily pressures of the business.
Changing your culture takes small steps over time and the guidance of leadership coaching will keep you on track. Your own strengths and weaknesses become the mirror from which your employees base their behavior. With the professional development of your own leadership style, the possibilities are really exciting.
Leadership Coaching Objectives
Your leadership coach will set objectives to help you craft the kind of company culture you desire. Accountability will keep you focused on the right action steps with consistency. Once the objectives are created, these action steps will help you move toward the kind of company culture you desire.
Assess and Rate your Company Culture
An ideal work environment nurtures and develops employees in a way that gets them excited to come to work everyday and perform their best. The best day to assess your culture is to create a basic employee satisfaction survey and anonymously get feedback from all your employees.
7 Ways to Improve Your Culture
Focus on “Dehassling” them:
Stop demotivating your employees by hiring incompetent people and implementing complex processes that will hinder their performance.
Emphasize Employee Wellness:
Make sure your employees’ physical, mental, and emotional states are taken care of. Try offering them needed resources and tools for both inside and outside the office.
Double Down on What is Working and Discard the Rest:
Rather than completely starting from scratch, ask your employees what aspects of company culture they like vs. they don’t like. Take their suggestions and expand on what is working.
Give Meaning and Purpose:
Job satisfaction is strongly linked to doing meaningful work. Emphasize to your employees how their work will have an impact on the company.
Create Common Goals and Objectives:
Having common goals and objectives will help bring employees together and give them something to work towards. This is particularly helpful for your sales team.
Show Appreciation to your Employees:
Foster a positive environment by showing gratitude, and optimism. Also, make sure you listen to your employees and make them feel accepted and valued.
Encourage Social Interactions:
Foster relationships between employees that will last longer both inside and outside the office.
Leadership Coaching is a Strategy For Creating the Right Culture
One of the best things you can to do to improve company culture is to hire a leadership coach. This gives you the objective analysis needed for your individual leadership style and teaches how you to lead your company through a culture change. It takes forethought, deep reflection and strategic analysis to accomplish and having a coach by your side can make a huge difference. Reach out today for information on how a leadership coach can help you or attend one of our webinars to see how we can help you.
