Five Important Ways to Strengthen Workplace Culture

​Why write an article of this nature when most businesses are closed due to COVID-19.  Perhaps this is a good time to reflect on your workplace culture practices and make suggestions to change the way you approach your organization and the people within it.

Brian Kristofek once said, “Being a great place to work is the difference between being a good company and great company.”

The success of your company or organization depends largely upon your ability to develop a positive company culture.

How you develop or adjust policies, procedures, and processes to meet the needs of a rapidly changing future has a profound impact on the atmosphere, values, structure, and morale of people within your organization.

So what can you do to foster a positive company culture? Well that is what The Workplace Culture video found in FORTIS MEMBERSHIP is all about.

This 30-minute video covers a wide range of topics that will assist you in developing a positive culture among your team and within your workplace. The following are five suggestions from that video.

1. Assess Your Current Culture

Assessing your company culture is easy when you are just starting out. After all, culture starts with the very first person you hire. You begin setting your company culture right away by setting out the type of person and values that suites you and your company.

However what happens when your company is already well established? What do you do then? How do you maintain and improve your existing company or organizational culture? Basically you will need to reassess and define your company culture if you want to see some improvements.
 Here are some simple steps to understand, change and improve your existing culture.

a) Evaluate your on-boarding process. If your hiring and training methods are antiquated consider transitioning into more personalized, open and participatory processes.

b) Determine whether the leadership is fluid and agile. Your organization will have difficulty moving forward if your leadership team is static and resistant to change.

c) Review your organization’s recognition and rewards program. Give employees several options on how they want to be recognized and rewarded.

d) Assess the interaction among team members and the interaction among teams. The goal is to establish relations that will pave the way for effective collaboration.
 
2. Know and identify the values that underpin your business operations.

 If you don’t do this it won’t be easy to identify what you want your company culture to look like. Some questions you should ask yourself when uncovering your company values are:

• Why does your company exist?
• What does your company stand for?
• What is your vision or mission?
• Where to you see yourself and your company a few years down the road?
• How do your employees demonstrate your company values? 
• Why do organizational values matter?
• How can they contribute to your company’s success and to the success of your employees and teams?

3.  Institutionalize the culture

After you have identified the kind of culture you want and need, commit the policies and processes to reinforce the new culture.  Make sure these policies and processors are scalable so that they can meet growth and change. You can do this by engaging a number of employees in the hiring process, essentially involving them in determining if a new hire is a good fit with the culture. Other things you can do are:

• When reviewing individual performance make sure that the company values are an important consideration.
• Centre your website with the values you hold and describe the kind of employees that would be a great fit for your company.
• Consider adding company value to everyone’s signature within the company. This not only shows customers and all those associated with your company that everyone is committed to carrying the values.

 
4.  Build Trust

The foundation to every company success is employee trust. It is unfortunate that a lot of major companies have high levels of alienation and distrust among leaders and employees. Communication issues are often the culprit in this regard. The foundation to building strong trust within an organization is always good communication. Make sure you:

• Keep communication lines open.

• Make time for one-on-one meetings.
• Provide employees with autonomy and accountability, and
• Help them feel valued and appreciated.

 
5.  Reduce Micromanagement.

Micromanagement holds employees back. In smaller organizations bureaucracy and micromanagement can almost be eliminated. The barriers between management and owner in smaller organizations can be encouraged. A flat organizational model can work when there is a close connection between managers and employees. Bureaucracy is reduced when there is direct access to the leadership team or business owner. Make everyone feel that they belong and that they are capable of handling and finishing their own work. When employees own their own work they feel valued and have a sense of belonging.

Thank you for Reading,
Richard Fontanie

PS. If you are a member of FORTIS MEMBERSHIP go to Masterclasses and Training. The video "Workplace Culture" is under the heading LEADERMANAGER.  if you are not a member consider joining HERE.