What is workplace culture?
Workplace culture refers to the environment that you create for your employees, this can play an integral role in determining their work satisfaction, relationships and progression. Your workplace culture can be defined by your organisation’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, behaviour and contribution. These kinds of values are typically unspoken in the workplace and rely heavily on colleges respecting one another.
Why is it important?
There are many reasons why establishing a strong vulture is beneficial for your organisation some of which are:
Attracting talent - Typically your staff will spend more time at work than at home so ensuring that you are creating a strong, positive, clearly defined and well-communicated culture attracts talent that fits.
Satisfaction- A healthy workplace culture will make your staff feel excited to come to work every day, a positive work environment increases your employee’s concentration and therefore boosting productivity.
Engagement - It is easy enough to recruit employees but it can be a financial drain if they choose to leave, a positive workplace culture ensures that your staff are engaged in their work. By showing them what your expectations are they are more likely to strive towards those goals. In return, this will ensure that they remain at the company for longer.
How can you establish a strong workplace culture?
Now we have established why workplace culture is important, how do you go about developing your own? Employers can use the following tips to help build a positive culture for their employees:
Meaning - Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose are more important than ever especially through these trying times. A majority of employees crave meaning and purpose through their work, without it job satisfaction can take a hit.
Ways you can try to strengthen your employees meaning and purpose is by creating a mission statement and list of core values for your company. Give your staff specific examples of how their roles positively impact the company and help grow business.
Goals- By creating goals for your employees to achieve you are bringing your staff together creating a sense of teamwork and boosting morale. No organization can have a corporate culture without clear goals in place.
Positive environment- It is essential that as an employer you create a positive atmosphere in the workplace, it is your responsibility to ensure that all members of staff are positively influencing one another. Some ways you can encourage this is by rewarding your staff for work well done and offering incentives.
Listen- Being a good listener is one of the easiest ways employers can start to build a positive culture. According to research gathered by CultureIQ, 86% of employees at companies with strong cultures feel their senior leadership listens to employees, as compared to 70% of employees at companies without a strong culture.
Now that you understand how vital workplace culture ensures that all your employees are onboarded in a way that allows them to understand and contribute, take a look at our website for more advice onboarding your employees.