Your office is the most important part of your life. You prepare most of your early life to be at one, and when you finally get one, it has to be perfect. The major mover and shaker when it comes to productivity, overall employee satisfaction, and even your outcome is work culture.
You cannot have a messy work culture, either way, neither too strict nor too casual at your office. We are trying to make a living for a group of people through it, sure, it is serious business. However, it is people, after all, who is going to make it all happen, so you have to cut them some slack, every then and now.
When any internet search can make it sound like a cakewalk, finding the perfect work culture that makes the majority of your employees happy is a tiresome job. In this blog, we will try to seek the perfect balance via exploring the do’s and don’ts of creating an applauding work culture. Let’s drive straight in then, shall we? Let’s explore what you should be doing right first:
Do's
1) Do a Little Research Among Your Peers.
When people say you should learn from your mistakes, they are not 100% accurate. You don’t have to make mistakes to acquire important lessons, you should always learn from others’ mistakes. Visit your friends’ or sibling or kins’ company to see what formula they are holding up and how it is affecting their work culture?
This bit will help you in learning what is working for your peers’ companies but also what is the best or worst ways to implement any idea for building a good work culture. You will be surprised to know how much you can learn about a company’s work culture by just exploring any company’s Glassdoor profile. LinkedIn is another great source of information to know what employees have to say about any company. Also, avoid crossing the legal line while doing the research, you may want to hire an attorney for better cases than online stalking.
You ought to analyze both successful and failed companies to assess what can work as well as what can go while using a certain aspect of improving work culture at an office.
2) Know What is Work Culture!
Before getting what your company needs to have an applaudable work culture first you need to understand what work culture is actually?
Culture as they say in any or every company is the limits of acceptable behavior or general norms of operations in your company environment. We cannot label any culture good or bad although it can shape your organization’s success and progress.
The key norm of any organization’s healthy culture is accountability. Make your employees feel responsible for their actions and outcome. Then comes the norm of providing the best help or customer care service you can provide. There will always be faulty products and bad service when you are running a company. What matters the most is how you handle unsatisfied customers. Keeping your employees engaged and faithful to your vision are the other top two things that are going to define your work culture.
3) Encourage Them To Learn Something New
Most of the companies die because their employees after short-term success go onto their employees’ minds and they think they know everything. A good person, let alone an employee, must always keep learning new things. The theory of evolution applies to businesses too. If you are not evolving your skills with time, you are not the fittest anymore and then of course you are not going to survive for long. Learning new things must and will be a part of your work culture. This has to be the best addition to your employee program and you, thanks to this one new habit, are going to get two great things. Now, you can determine which employee has the hunger to learn and deliver more, while you will also identify people who are way too lazy to adapt to new information. Now you know what is weighing down your company’s growth with the minimum outcome.
Now, let’s discuss what you can do for the brilliant employees who want to learn. You can provide specialized tools, books, or help them get into the programs that are going to enhance their skill set. Not only will it help your company in the outcome, but it will also put you off like a boss who cares about their employee’s personal growth.
But, always invest in the employees who you believe will stay with you for a longer period of time. After all, we are preparing an army that can fight our fight against the corporate world, not outsourcing recruits for others. A bigger step in this direction would be a digital library and a shorter one would be weekly documentaries.
4) Opt Transparency
Every single worker/employee wants their fair share of company information. They are breaking their backs for your dream. You are their leader whom they have put their whole trust in, these people are entitled to transparency. Whenever there is a problem, and whenever your organization will manage to achieve something bigger than expected, your employees must know about it.
The big changes happening in between the company should be laid in front of your professional peers. When you are bringing transparency in your work culture you are adding up trust in it as well. You are reflecting the fact that your organization is but a giant family, where members can and should trust each other.
You have to be the boss who says, “these were our expectations from the project, this is what we have got or we missed, and this is what we are learning from this experience.
Don’ts
1) Avoid Making Assumptions
This is what is going to decay your company from inside, the assumptions. When prejudice has always been Judas for healthy work culture, it has no place whatsoever in today’s working environment. We are living in a world totally different from the one we were living in just a couple of years back. Today our employees work from home most of the time, you may never get the chance to see a person face to face and they might be an important part of your company.
The best practice to resolve the prejudice issue is feedback. Ask your employees about their work experience, what they are liking, and what they think can be improved about your organization. It is very hard to run a successful company, you have to do psychoanalysis of this feedbacks in order to know who is going to stay longer and who’s replacement should be found.
2) Longer Working Hours
You cannot suck the life out of your employees. If they are coming early and leaving late, eventually they are going to feel violated and end up leaving your place. Longer working hours are a known killer of perfect work culture.
Your employees must be able to see the efforts you are making for them, and your efforts should make your office feel like as much of a home to them as possible. A healthy work culture requires employees to have the perfect work-life balance. Even the workaholics will also appreciate this step. Key is to make sure they are always comfortable, the chairs, the working stations, the parking spots, everything must glow with comfort.
A person goes home to get comfortable, and when you are providing that at your place, you will see miracles work.
3) No Bad Mouthing
Nothing breaks the confidence of an employee than knowing that their peers are speaking ill behind their back. So, you have to establish strict rules about any kind of bad-mouthing, gossip, and trash talk.
Office gossip cannot be a part of your daily office life. You need a team that talks highly of each other, even when they notice something negative, they must convey their feedback in the form of constructive criticism. The gossip often leads to speculation, which eventually leads to huge problems among your employees.
Now when I say no bad-mouthing, I never meant you have to be best friends with every single person you work with. But, you must watch your words. You can’t force all of them to fake friendships, just teach them how to be considerate of others.
4) Unfriendly Competition
Just nip it in the bud, whenever you notice there is an unhealthy or unfriendly competition going on among your employees. Trust me, it is never going to end well. It will either conclude in a huge fight or in a person leaving your company because they might be a sore loser.
When your workers must engage in some competition, like Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi. They should avoid competitiveness like Ross and Monica Geller, from the famous sitcom FRIENDS.
All’s Well, When End’s Well.
Your company is your dream that you can only turn into reality when there are smart people working for it tirelessly. Your managers are the key to your company’s success. As per an estimate, if most of the companies in this world get rid of their bad managers, the productivity will shoot 50% higher than now.
Your managers must not work as generals instructing the soldiers, but as humans helping other humans in being the better version of themselves. You cannot be there all the time with every single employee, your managers are your angels, don’t make them fall.
We have discussed the most important aspects of making a great company culture. You are off to a good start, go fulfill those dreams of yours.
