A positive workplace culture is conducive to a successful organisation as it encourages employees to feel valued. According to research by Deloitte, a company culture that has “clearly defined and communicated values and beliefs”, where business leaders and employees work together to act according to those core values, increases job satisfaction. Apparently, the secret of success for exceptional organisations and industry leaders (besides a clearly defined business strategy) is creating a workplace culture that makes employees feel valued, which in turn engages and motivates employees to do their best at work and be more productive.
Benefits of Creating a Positive Work Environment
By creating a positive workplace, you improve employee wellbeing, and when your team is happy, they work harder, and are more engaged and focussed. A positive work environment significantly reduces stress levels and improves job satisfaction. A positive work culture encourages top talent to seek job opportunities within your organisation, which produces a better pool of talent to draw from which leads to team growth and development and business success in the long term.
How to Create a Positive Work Environment
Below are some tips for creating a positive workplace culture:
Be Grateful
One of the most important tips for creating a positive workplace culture is to be grateful. A good salary isn’t enough to ensure job satisfaction; making your employees feel valued is the key to creating a positive work environment. Simple acts of gratitude such as saying ‘thank you’ or buying your team members lunch or a coffee occasionally can show you care about your employees’ wellbeing and appreciate their contributions to the organisation. Showing gratitude will assist in creating a positive workplace by inspiring team members to continue to work together towards the organization’s objectives as a whole.
Play to Employee Strengths
If your employees are working on tasks they aren’t suited to, they’re likely to feel out of their depth or may feel they aren’t contributing to the team, and their confidence and morale will drop accordingly, while stress levels will increase. Make sure you know your employees, assess their strengths and determine how they can best contribute to the organization before assigning tasks. Give them responsibilities that play to their strengths. When your employees are doing what they do best, they’ll feel more confident, their job satisfaction should increase, and they generally produce better results.
Be Optimistic
Optimism is integral to creating a positive workplace culture. As a business leader, you should lead by example, as how you act and what you say affects your company culture. If you want to build a positive workplace culture then be positive about the organisation’s core values and ‘live’ them, and your employees will follow suit. Open communication and positive phrasing of feedback make employees feel more inclined to take the feedback on board and improve accordingly.
Connect With Individuals
Connecting with employees is something many business leaders struggle with when creating a positive workplace. To create a positive workplace culture, you need to engage with individual members of your team and gain their trust. Open communication backed by employee recognition makes employees feel valued and encourages them to perform better. Take time to talk to employees and find out their goals, interests, and what drives them, then help them develop their skills in order to meet those goals, rewarding them with something that motivates them personally.
Celebrate Small Wins
Employee recognition through celebrating every win is a great way to build a positive workplace culture. It can be challenging to maintain team morale when working on long-term projects with many moving parts. However, all projects are built up of smaller steps consisting of valuable contributions from each team member. By celebrating each team member’s contribution, however small, you’ll reinforce a positive workplace culture and give your team a much-needed motivational boost so they can renew their efforts to work together and remain productive.
Encourage Ideas
You should encourage employees to share their ideas on how to improve aspects of the organisation, as their perspective often differs from those of business leaders. When faced with a new challenge, encourage your employees to help find a solution to the problem. You’ll be surprised at how much insight your employees may have gained based on their experience at the coal face, so to speak. Your team will feel that their input is valued, and they will feel more positive about their work environment if some of the solutions are implemented. In turn, you’ll gain a complete picture of the issues at hand, and diverse solutions to your problems may be presented.
Trust Your Team
Delegation is something many business leaders struggle with. In a positive work environment, a leader should entrust tasks to employees then monitor their progress and provide constructive feedback and guidance to help them accomplish them. If you hold on to your old duties while balancing your new leadership responsibilities, it will quickly increase your stress levels whilst making your employees feel frustrated and redundant. Delegating appropriate duties to your employees makes them feel valued and allows them to take ownership, and have pride in their work, which increases motivation and in turn creates a positive workplace culture.
Inspire Your Vision
As a business leader, you should have a vision of what you want the organization to accomplish and you should set goals and objectives outlining how to get there. You need to communicate your core values to your employees to inspire your team to latch on to the vision. Provide a roadmap of how you want to achieve your vision and where each employee fits into that picture. Then give them the skills and tools to achieve that vision, rewarding them for their contributions. This will help build a positive workplace culture as each employee can see where their personal contribution lies.
Create Opportunities
A positive workplace culture is one that encourages employees to strive for success. When you fail to provide your team with development opportunities, their careers are likely to stagnate creating resentment, or employees will seek other job opportunities. Creating a positive workplace culture involves regular performance reviews where you set personal development goals for employees aligned with the business goals and core values, and you make a plan on how the business can help the employee achieve those goals. Some employees may need coaching or skills training whilst for others, employee recognition, an incentive or bonus, or just added responsibility may push them to fulfil their potential.
Have Fun
While it’s important to focus on work, doing so constantly can increase your team’s stress levels. Giving your team a break from work can help them regain their focus and renew their efforts. Try to make work fun. You can perhaps have daily team check-ins where team members can socialize and share stories or take part in a work-related quiz for a small reward. You could also encourage employees to spend time together outside of work or engage them in team activities which may help them work together better.
A positive workplace culture boosts employee morale and encourages them to produce better results for your organization. For more information on how to create a positive work environment call us for free initial advice on 1300 651 415.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Company Culture?
A Company culture is what characterises an organisation, and it encompasses many different things, including core values, beliefs, behaviors, goals, attitudes and work practices that help shape a company and its employees.
What is the Most Important Part of a Company Culture?
Workplace culture is the driving force that affects every part of the business. It supports the business in the achievement of the organisation’s vision and goals. A positive workplace culture can help employees feel part of the organisation and increase retention and productivity as employees are more engaged. The most important part of a company culture is a primary focus on the wellbeing of employees and making them feel connected to the workplace.
How do I Determine my Current Company’s Culture?
In order to determine an organisation’s culture, business leaders should review the company values and vision, observe practices within the organisation, and get feedback from employees:
- Evaluate the on-boarding process – look at induction and recruitment processes – are they personalised? Is the process adaptable and the presentation engaging?
- Assess leadership – Is communication open and transparent? Is the business model agile and fluid? Are employees encouraged to share their views and experiences?
- Incentive programs – Is the business results-orientated and does it provide employee recognition and development opportunities?
- Observe team interactions – assess working relationships between co-workers, the level of teamwork and team dynamics.
- Determine attitudes – Is the workplace inclusive and respectful? Are employees made responsible and held accountable for achieving desired outcomes? Is the communication open and positive?
How do you Measure Culture in an Organisation?
You can measure culture in an organisation by conducting an employee surveyand asking employees whether they feel they fit into the organization, and if they feel valued, and if their personal goals are recognized and aligned with the business’s core values, vision and work style.
How can I Create Positive Work Culture at an Organisation During COVID-19?
COVID-19 has placed unprecedented stresses on organisations and employees alike. Open communication and keeping everyone informed is key. Employees who are working from home may be feeling disconnected from the business and their team members. Communicate through regular (online) team meetings to increase workplace involvement and encourage the exchange and sharing of ideas so employees feel they are contributing positively to the organisation.
How can Workplace Culture be Improved?
Workplace Culture can be improved through deliberate and consistent planning and action.
- Understand the current environment – perhaps through employee feedback and surveys;
- Decide what you want to keep and what to change;
- Create experiences and make changes that are in keeping with the culture you would like to cultivate;
- Make a plan on how you will change the culture and make employees feel valued;
- Communicate the core values and positive changes to employees;
- Monitor and review the plan and tweak where necessary;
- Reinforce positive cultural changes through reward and employee recognition.
How can I Make my Work Culture Happy?
By making sure employees feel that their happiness and well-being is important to the company, and that they are working with the company to achieve common goals.
What Makes a Positive Work Culture?
An organization with clear goals, objectives and core values employees can get behind, feel part of and be inspired by builds a positive workplace culture which is supported by:
- Open communication that incorporates employee feedback, and encourages improvement and collaboration;
- diversity and inclusiveness – individual differences between employees are accepted and accommodated;
- growth and development – providing recognition and rewarding positive behaviours and providing equal opportunities for skills development and progression.
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