(Image Above | Pixabay)
A great workplace culture is imperative in today’s business world, where everyone from investors to end consumers value corporate transparency. How you run your business behind closed doors can have a tremendous impact on your overall success. Howard H. Stevenson, the Chair of the Harvard Business Publishing Company board once said, “Maintaining an effective culture is so important that it, in fact, trumps even strategy.”
For culture to play such a big role, it’s unfortunate that many CEOs and small business owners don’t take it seriously enough. For starters, many people simply don’t understand what workplace culture consists of. Culture is everything that happens among your staff when upper management isn’t watching. It’s how comfortable the staff is, how valuable they are and how valuable they feel, as well as what motivates them to continue working for you. It’s about their environment — and how appealing or ineffective it is. And believe it or not, small changes in day-to-day operations can have a huge impact on workplace culture.
Why You Need To Care About Workplace Culture
As a business owner, you should want your employees to be happy to work for you. There’s no reason they should be dreading going to work each day. Sometimes, the work is difficult and long hours and creative thinking is necessary — but working under you shouldn’t add stress. When the workplace culture is positive, your employees are happier, and happiness has been proven to increase productivity.
Culture can also help you recruit great talent. It’s not uncommon for potential candidates to check company reviews on sites like Glassdoor or Indeed. And for major companies, workplace culture is a huge topic among the public and news outlets (enough to affect stock prices). Money isn’t enough to keep the best employees on your team and encourage them to do great work for you.
Improving The Workplace Culture
There are plenty of horrible work culture experiences to forewarn you of the effects of a bad environment. Uber’s terrible workplace culture resulted in the CEO having to leave the company, and several key players being fired. You don’t want this to be you.
Sometimes, you might not even realize that you’ve cultivated a bad workplace culture. When you’re in charge, it can be difficult to view operations from the eyes of an employee. This is why you should have methods in place of gathering feedback and making your staff feel comfortable with providing it. For example, Quirk created a flow chart that allows employees to suggest, vote, and implement ideas, rather than anonymously suggest changes. This encourages ownership and free thought.
Often, improving the workplace culture takes just a little extra effort each day. This could include being sincere in thanking your employees for jobs well done (a little appreciation goes a long way). Let them know why you’re grateful to have them working for you, and what you liked most about their work. You can also buy in-office treats, such as snacks for the kitchen or grab bagels on Friday morning.
Get your employees in on helping build the culture, too. Assign one or a few people the responsibility of handling a monthly team building exercise or work outing. This involves them in the process and gives them creative freedom and responsibility. It’s important that you set aside a budget — however small or large — to let your employees have fun with one another without focusing on deadlines, paperwork, or conference calls.
Examples of Great Workplace Culture
Sometimes it’s best to take a look at how other companies are keeping their employees happy to give you inspirational ideas on what to do in your own office.
Google is one of the most popular examples of a great workplace culture. Google does a wonderful job of keeping employees happy; one look at their offices, and you’ll see why. In fact, they’re known for their playful, fun office environments. Their New York City office is dog-friendly and there’s 3,000 scooters on-site for navigating the building. Their California office has a bowling alley, climbing wall, a slide, and weekly celebrations.
Everything about their culture is calculated. The company offers free meals and snacks, and ensures that the wait in line is just three to four minutes — short enough to not waste time, but long enough to chat with other people.
Infor
Workplace culture also comprises what goes on beyond business hours for people that aren’t a part of your team. How businesses give back to their communities affects employee and public perception, and speaks volumes for company values. Charles Phillips of Infor aims to give back to local communities through a series of assistance programs. They’ve partnered with educational institutions to increase diversity in the tech industry and diminish STEM skills shortages in the workforce. And to close the gender gap, Women Infor Network (WIN) supporting, recruiting, and mentoring women in tech.
Snag A Job
You don’t have to have a Google budget to incorporate fun into the workplace. Snag A Job, a job listing service for hourly work, does their best to make work feel less like — well, work. Part of Snag a Job’s workplace culture involves chilli-cookoffs, office olympics, and more. They were ranked first on the 2012 list of Great Places To Work.
They maintain a Culture Squad with a revolving team that consists of one employee from each department. It’s up to them to decide on the events for the month and keep the working environment enjoyable for everyone.
