A strong work culture is incredibly important to your business, as it will help you to attract and retain great employees – as well as being a reflection of your company as a whole.
Take Innocent drinks as an example. You can tell simply by their social media that it is a fun, quirky place to work. You may never have considered working for a company that primarily sells smoothies. But, what you could be attracted to is the strong work culture that the company and its employees embody.
A weak work culture is incredibly demotivating for employees, while a strong work culture will boost employee engagement. Employees are vital to your business and this will provide them with the right conditions to commit to it and therefore put their all into each and every day – helping, ultimately, to make the company a success. A win-win for both.
However, you do need your employee’s involvement in order to achieve this, so here are five ways you can develop a strong work culture to boost employee engagement.
- Appoint someone to be in charge of this
While all employees will need to have some level of involvement, by appointing one or more members of the team to take the lead on this you can make sure you don’t lose focus. Take Paddy Power’s ‘Head of Mischief’ – basically a key member of the marketing team who cements them as, and ensures they remain, a company with a mischievous culture.
Why not outsource the more menial, but incredibly important tasks so you have more time to spend on developing the more interesting and fun areas that will create the work culture you require and as a result boost employee morale?
CIPHR, for example, can take the pain and hassle out of HR tasks including payroll, recruitment, support and training – while you spend your extra time planning summer parties!
- Communication is vital
Be open and honest with your employees and while communicating with them, enable them to communicate with you. They know their role within the business better than anyone else and therefore are best placed to provide constructive feedback – listen to them and they will feel appreciated and, as a result, want to make a difference.
- Adopt a people first attitude
Your employees are your greatest resource so adopt a people-not-profit-first attitude – you need these people in order to make a profit! Invest in your employees and ensure they feel supported.
- Break down barriers
Open plan offices enable employees easy access to one another as well as the information they need to get the job done. If departments or titles don’t separate people, they will feel more connected to each other and therefore more of a company.
- Don’t forget to have fun!
Getting the work done is important, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun while doing it. In fact, if your employees are having fun, they will feel happier and this will show in their work. This could include planning several social activities both inside and outside of working hours.
Likewise, workplaces can be boring and stifling – take influence from Ticketmaster, who often appear on ‘the coolest office’ lists as the office provides a social space which is kitted out with board games, a ping pong table, football table and an Xbox. This might not be for everyone, but making your employees comfortable and enabling them to socialize will make them more productive in the long run.
