Workplace culture has a huge impact on how engaged and motivated your employees feel. While there is often little choice about the actual work, how the work is done or what the company stands for is definitely something within an organisation’s control. Culture can impact on everything from staff retention through to productivity.
Below are five tips to help ensure your workplace culture is working for you.
1. Look for Attitude in New Recruits
Often the recruitment process places too much emphasis on ensuring that the candidates can do the job. In reality, nearly everything they need to do can be taught. What you can’t always teach people though, is how to fit in to the way your company does its business. Even if they are incredibly gifted or experienced in their field, a bad hiring decision with somebody who can’t work with your existing staff or within your company values can have a negative impact on overall morale.
2. Be Culturally Sensitive
Adherence to the anti-discrimination act is the minimum level that you should aspire to. Equal opportunity and embracing a multicultural workplace is only the first step; you also need to ensure that your culture supports the individual needs of your employees. Engaging a reputable human resources firm like Chandler Macleod can help you to put systems and processes in place to meet industry best practice standards for cultural inclusion and sensitivity.
3. Get Staff Input
Inviting your staff to give feedback and submit suggestions can be a really effective way to engage and motivate them while producing better results for the business. They are the ones doing the work day in and day out, so are often your best resource when it comes to system and process improvement.
4. Communicate Openly
Don’t leave staff guessing (or gossiping) about company information – ensure there are open and regular lines of communication between staff and management. It doesn’t have to be as formal as a round table meeting – a five to ten minute catch up in your workspace before you start the day is a great way to touch base with everyone and disseminate information.
5. Have Some Fun
“Play” is one of the core principles from the ‘Fish!’ case study out of the Seattle seafood markets and the idea is that while you should always be serious about the work itself, there is no reason why you can’t have fun doing it. Find ways to inject some enjoyment into your team – it might be letting them listen to music at their desks, morning teas on Monday, casual clothes on Friday or whatever you think will work for your team.
Workplace culture is such an important aspect to any organisation and can have a direct impact on productivity. Happy, motivated and engaged staff produce the best results, so ensuring you provide a working environment that fosters and encourages this kind of attitude is essential to success.
What do you think makes a workplace’s culture great?
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