What is company culture? Why is it important?
Company culture refers to the health of a company’s employee base. As an employer, you may hear this term often. Most commonly, it describes the mission, values, health, and happiness of your employees. While you may not see culture as a significant aspect of focus, your employees are the heart of your business. Take the time to understand what they enjoy and dislike about their current responsibilities. A healthy workforce is able to achieve far greater accomplishments due to a sense of fulfillment and purpose.
How healthy is your culture? Forbes outlines a list to help employers measure the health of their current office culture. While culture is a difficult thing to track and analyze, it’s always possible to find better ways to make your workplace a better place to work and grow.
Clarity of purpose
How well informed and aware are your employees on the long-term mission and growth strategies related to your company? Chances are, if you employees do not understand the larger picture, they’ll be more challenged to find inspiration on their day-to-day activities. Make an effort to share your vision with all employees. And, make it clear how each position in the company plays a valuable role.
Employee engagement
Once your employees understand the larger mission, how fulfilled are they when performing their tasks? To measure employee engagement, you must be willing to ask tough questions that may need revised answers or systems. An engaged employee will be on the hunt to discover new ways to help the larger goal. Do what you can to positively enforce this behavior. Innovation and insight from your employees can be invaluable tools for your business.
An environment of trust
Building an environment of trust is a slow process. You want your employees to feel like they’re on the same team–and that each of their voices can be heard. Here, you’ll need to rely on your team of managers. By leading with a positive and open attitude, the rest of your staff will feel comfortable voicing opinions, ideas, and critiques. Consider having your management team lead weekly meetings with individual members of their team. This can help build trust quickly. Weekly meetings are also great to motivate and track the work each member contributes to the company. Take a step back and ask yourself: is my company a safe place to work where employees feel trusted and heard?
If you’d like to talk more about developing strategies to advance the positive culture at your workplace, contact Koppekin Consulting for additional support.
