5 Ways to build and nurture your "Company Culture"

Why are some employers known for creating an enjoyable workplace that attracts the best candidates? What can you do to build, and nurture a strong culture that ensures your team consistently produce good work?

(1) Define your Culture 

Developing a distinctive culture that helps your team members drive performance is a important way in which you can differentiate your company. The challenge is that culture is extremely difficult for leaders to identify, define, quantify, and comprehend at a level that they can actually manage. As a leader you need to bear in mind these three key aspects

Organizational culture: the behavior of the people who are part of your organization,

Employee culture: is created by the beliefs and behaviors that dictate how your company’s employees are treated, trained, incentivize.

Corporate culture: is often implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires.

(2) Hire only the types of people who fit your culture. 

Though hiring is a challenge, don’t settle for someone just because they’re a body to fill a position. Make hiring easier by tightening the field. Flight well-written employment ads that define the culture, and validate what fitting that culture would mean in action. Create smart interview questions that help you define the candidate’s fit for the culture. This will ensure that the candidate knows what expect when they join your company.

(3) Acknowledge and appreciate your employees

One of my clients insists on calling his employees team members as this makes feel more like a part of something, something bigger than them. Instead of using terms like worker, employee etc team member seems to ring well with the team. We spend so much of our time at the workplace that how we are made to feel determines how happy we are. We all want acknowledgement, respect, recognition, and a heartfelt “thank you.”

(4) Use technology to help build work culture.

Do not take for granted just how powerful technology can be in connecting and strengthening team member relationships. There are a multitude of apps that can be used to foster team work, and allow for the free flow of honest expressions. Here are our favorites:

Whatsapp
Trello
Slack
Evernote


(5) Create a level playing field

Try to create and enable opportunities for team members to speak honestly about what they see as company inadequacies or prospects for improvement. Allow anyone who would like to speak a chance to voice non-threatening opinions about red flags in the organization, your industry or issues with characters or processes. You’ll get some of your finest, most insightful and most valuable information from your team members, since they are closest to many company procedures. Once pain points have been noticed, they will also be your catalyst in facilitating change.