5 Ways to Foster a Healthy Company Culture
Company culture affects everything from day-to-day priorities to how engaged employees are with their work. Establishing a healthy, positive company culture takes some work, but it can make a huge difference when it comes to employee productivity, morale and turnover.
Read on to find out about the top five ways to foster healthy company culture and start implementing these techniques today.
1. Build Relationships Through Positive Distractions
Most managers don’t want their teams to be distracted, but there are some types of distractions that can be a positive thing. Try planning occasional on-the-clock outings or volunteer days, hosting holiday lunches, or setting up an office coffee service to provide drinks and snacks in the break room. Positive distractions like getting together with peers can deepen work relationships, foster trust, and make employees feel more valued.
2. Establish Clear, Effective Communication Patterns
Maintaining a healthy company culture requires clear, effective lines of communication across the entire organization. Try to foster discussion about company goals and priorities by setting up a suggestion box or making use of something like this idea management software, providing employee engagement surveys, and requesting input from various teams as applicable. Every employee wants to feel that his or her voice is being heard, and many of them have valuable insights that can help the whole company grow and thrive, so everyone wins when leaders establish open lines of communication.
3. Create Collaborative Initiatives
Collaborative initiatives help teams develop more effective communication strategies and learn how to work together to accomplish shared goals. While there’s no denying the essential role that managers and team leaders play in keeping everyone on track, it can also be helpful to set up “skip the boss” style round tables and collaborative projects that involve employees from different departments.
4. Encourage Healthy Competition
While few employees enjoy feeling like they’re being measured against their peers constantly, fostering healthy competition is an integral part of creating a positive company culture. Try to focus on collaborative competition that encourages all team members to do their part, and keep it fun by setting up straightforward rules and rewards for meeting or surpassing goals. There’s no need to turn everyday work into fierce, winner-takes-all competitions, but rewarding employees for producing results, especially as a team, is a great way to boost engagement.
5. Provide Recognition for Achievements
This bears repeating: workers like to be acknowledged for the vital role they play in supporting their companies’ operations. Make sure to recognize a job well done, either by publicizing success in company newsletters or meetings or offering rewards such as extra paid time off, designated parking spots, or even service anniversary awards. Promoting from within the ranks instead of seeking outside candidates preferentially for management roles also offers companies a way to reward enterprise and offer incentives to employees who want to move up the career ladder.
It Doesn’t Cost a Fortune to Create a Healthy Company Culture
One of the best things about implementing the methods described above is that while all of them require some extra effort, none of them cost a fortune. Ultimately, most people value having a healthy work environment more than receiving extravagant gifts or going on expensive, prolonged company retreats. Start with the basics and make sure all of the upper management is on the same page about how to implement positive changes to get their entire teams on board.