A company’s culture stems from its values and mindset, as well as that of its employees. As a business leader, it’s important to ensure that the perks and benefits you offer your employees support these values.
That doesn’t mean you should add indoor slides or sleep pods. However, more and more companies are doing things like allowing employees to work from home. While you may just see this as a nice gesture, it’s actually a strategy for improving employee morale and boosting productivity. It shows your employees that you care about their happiness, you trust them to do their job, and you see them as more than a worker bee.
But an effective company culture isn’t just about making your employees feel good. Your focus should be on how to help them do their jobs better, so your business can run and grow as effectively and efficiently as possible.
This requires a delicate balance between your business’s and employees’ needs. Here are some things you can do to foster a strong company culture for you and your people:
Explain the big picture
Most of your employees probably spend more time working than they do with their families. Why? For what? Your employees want to know there is a purpose behind their sacrifices.
How do their day-to-day jobs contribute to the objectives of the team and the company as a whole? How does your company improve the lives of your clients or customers?
Knowing how their work contributes to the greater good of your business, and maybe even your industry or society as a whole, gives your employees a sense of belonging and value.
Get your leadership team on the same page
Chances are, there’s more than one leader at the helm of your business. These people are passing down directions to their direct reports. Therefore, it’s essential that your leaders are all focused on the same goals. Otherwise, your business will likely make several wrong turns and spend a lot of time focused on the wrong objectives.
Hold employees accountable
Let your employees own their work. Avoid micromanaging them or their projects. They’ll have a much more vested interest if those projects are something that gives them a sense of accomplishment and pride. But with ownership comes responsibility. Everyone should be responsible for mistakes within his or her assigned area. This way, the whole team isn’t punished for something that was beyond their control.
Insperity, a trusted advisor to America’s best businesses since 1986, provides an array of human resources and business solutions designed to help improve business performance. With 2018 revenues of $3.8 billion, Insperity operates in 78 offices throughout the United States. To learn how Insperity can help you, email [email protected] or call 813.556.2010.
