One excellent way to attract new talent and retain your staff is to improve company culture. A great culture makes your business an exciting workplace and fosters employee growth.
Cultivating that great culture can be a challenge. After all, company culture will form even when it is not deliberately nurtured.
Follow the steps below to transform the culture into something that reflects the values and goals of your business.
Three Simple Steps for Improving Company Culture
Many companies have changed drastically since they went remote and either returned to the office - or remained remote. Many businesses pivoted in the last two years, and the pivot included their culture. For some, this was a good thing. Others lost the essence of what made their company exciting to work for and have failed to attract employees with similar values.
It’s time to revisit the culture in your business and determine if you need to make changes and improve communication, team alignment, leadership style, or something else. The first step to take is Step 1 below.
Step 1. Ask Yourself These Questions
Before you begin to modify the culture in your business, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What values do I hold, and how are they translated in the company?
2. How should it feel for my employees when they come to work every day?
3. Does the mission of this business shine through in every interaction?
4. Has the culture changed in the last two years? If so, how has it changed?
5. Have I sufficiently communicated the company goals in an actionable way?
Once you have answered the questions, you can develop action items for improving the culture that is unique to your business.
Step 2. Focus on Communication
Any culture is built upon excellent communication, and superior communication systems can solve many problems.
For example, if your team isn’t aligned when it comes to company goals - how can you resolve that issue? Answer: Through communication of those company goals, including how the team can pursue the goals and achieve them.
How can one improve communication within a business? Here are some suggestions:
- Make Data Sharing Common.
When your team shares data about tasks, information, and general knowledge as part of their regular job, they are doing two things.
First, they make it easier for their teammates to do their work.
Second, they are creating a culture of collaboration.
- Implement Knowledge Transfer Systems
Knowledge transfer is another way to share information. However, not everyone sees it that way. Employees may worry that you are trying to replace them when asked to document the unique knowledge that pertains to their job. Instead, you hope to preserve institutional knowledge so that expanding a department can be simple. Communicating that may not alleviate employees' worries if they are the only ones creating a knowledge transfer document.
The solution is to implement knowledge transfer as a standard practice. Building systems to retain institutional knowledge will allow for free-flowing information exchange and make training new staff much easier.
- Establish Systems for Checking In
Another communication system is a sincere check-in. Creating a system for checking in with your team - and for team members to check in on one another is a great way to improve communication. This is an excellent method of catching an issue early while also making employees understand how much you care about their well-being.
These are just a few systems that you can implement to improve communication and foster a culture of collaboration in your business.
Step 3. Include employees in the discussion
As you think about the culture in your company and build new communication practices, include employees in the process. Talk with your employees about their core values and the culture they’d like to work in. Getting employees on board will help you improve the culture more rapidly than you could ever do alone.
Do you want to systematize communication, implement knowledge transfer, and build efficiency and communication into the culture? Get in touch with Business Success Consulting Group. Our team of consultants is here to help you improve business systems and build a strong foundation for your thriving company.
