Establishing a Positive and Successful Culture
A strong company culture must be defined, shaped, and nurtured in an organization. A culture that positively influences your employees’ performance and customer engagement can give a business a competitive advantage. It can be the difference between success and failure. It enables or inhibits the capacity to hire and retain staff, as well as impacts productivity and profitability. Culture should be seen and felt in a business. When it is not strong and positive, it works against you, and everything is more difficult.
Most people spend about one-third of their lives at work, so building strong relationships with colleagues can make working more enjoyable and productive. It is important for organizations to find ways to ensure their work cultures create and nurture connectivity among their employees. There are 7 elements that are essential when establishing a positive culture.
What are the 7 Key Elements of a Positive and Successful Workplace Culture?
- Recognition and Reward: It is important that all stakeholders play a proactive role in its development. A company’s culture is the embodiment of its values, goals, and ethics. There is one element that all organizations should have at the core of their culture, and that is reward and recognition. Building your culture around the principles of recognition and reward is an incredibly impactful way to ensure that company culture contributes to the success of the organization. Effective culture enhancement depends on planning to incent, reward, and recognize employees or associates to achieve the expected (maybe new) goals. Incentives can be tangible, such as raises to base compensation, bonuses, and other financial rewards. They can also include promotions, recognition awards, prizes, or perks. Incentives can also be intangible, such as better job satisfaction, less confusion, and making their jobs easier.
- Belonging and Connection: People have a basic need for belonging and connection. Healthy interpersonal relationships impact our health and overall well-being. This is true in the workplace as well. Employees want and need to build relationships at work. Employee engagement and performance can soar when personal connections have been made. Team connectivity is essential to embrace change, foster creativity, and maintain innovation. Creating a sense of unity makes employees feel like they are working for something bigger than themselves.
- Contribution: Employees feel more connected and valued when they are able to contribute to the organization’s mission, vision, and business success. A contribution provides a sense of purpose. People must feel safe and able to share their ideas and perspectives. Leaders must return that honesty with compassion and trust.
- Equitable: Organizations must treat everyone fairly and equally. When employees are certain that their leaders are fair, equitable, and inclusive, it changes the way they behave and perform.
- Growth Mindset: Providing opportunities for continual growth and development for employees is important. Collaborative experiences that encourage people to share knowledge, experiences, and skills allow for the development of a growth mindset. It is important to unlock people’s full potential at work. Investing in people’s development and helping them achieve their goals is a clear signal to them that the work they do has meaning. A positive work environment provides employees with clear expectations for advancement and the tools and training needed for success.
- Effective Communication: Clear job expectations are crucial. Effective communication is one of the most important aspects of a positive workplace culture. Leaders should be accessible and provide constructive feedback on performance. Employees should be encouraged to communicate with one another and need the tools to properly do so. Communication in the workplace must be clear, courteous, and proactive.
- Strong Purpose and Core Values: Creating a sense of purpose among employees is a key ingredient for any sustainable business. Building a purposeful culture starts first with a set of core values that are then reflected in the company’s long-term goals. These should be reflected in the organization’s mission and vision and should be woven into every one of the company’s actions. Core values give employees a clear reason for their work and can also help uplift the company at large.
Organizational efficiency in the workplace is the unique way your organization follows through with its mission and vision. The vision and mission of an organization provide strategic direction within a company. They help the employee know the purpose of its existence and core values. They help set priorities, allocate resources, and ensure that everyone is working towards common goals and objectives. The vision and mission provide a road map for the organization. Leaders must identify, measure, and monitor the culture of their organization. It is a powerful tool to proactively shape an organization.
How Can You Influence the Change Needed in Your Culture?
Inter Face Methods™ is a tool to enhance communications with anyone in your network. Individuals learn to better communicate with and influence others. When using the tool with others, it improves our ability to connect and collaborate. Inter Face Methods Learning eXcelerator™ provides a quick, easy compelling experience to enhance inclusion, collaboration, influence, and productivity. It offers participants the ability to learn about each other’s communication methods while teaching strategies to adapt, influence, and include. The result is team connectivity that builds the ability to solve problems together and increase productivity. Inclusion is enhanced when everyone on the team is able to hear each other’s voices, build communication skills, increase retention, and build more collaborative solutions.
Founded in 2001 as a Leadership Development Company, EDGES™ has evolved to be a resource for growing companies to help their Leaders grow their people, plan collaboratively and ensure process efficiency. EDGES™ ultimate goal is to provide individuals and organizations the tools needed to create a workplace environment rich in adaptation, connection, and alignment. We believe your team should be better as a result of working with us. If you are ready to strengthen the culture in your organization or would like more information about the Inter Face Method™ tool, go to interfacemethods.com.