What's Your Workplace Culture?

What is Workplace Culture?

Workplace culture is the sum of your internal stakeholders' thoughts, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, giving your business character and identity. It's the thought that comes to the minds of all stakeholders when they engage your business for work, products, or service. Workplace culture is influenced by many things such as policies, procedures, mission, values, resources, and space utilization.

Why You Should Care

Workplace culture affects your bottom dollar. People don't wish to engage businesses that are poorly run, inefficient, or have poor customer service. Even a business's physical appearance can affect whether or not people choose to do business with you unless there is something extremely exceptional about your business. For example, perhaps your business's environmental appearance is run down. Yet, you provide the best quality customer service, and that's what keeps customers coming back. Or maybe customer service is poor, but the food is phenomenal and one of a kind, so customers deal with it to get what they want. But how long will that last? People don't want that type of trade-off. Just like you and me, we want to engage businesses that are positive, efficient, and full of value, and there's no value in being treated poorly.

Benefits of A Positive Workplace Culture

Increase Employee Retention

If you have a high employee turnover, you are losing money by spending extra to keep your positions filled. According to an SHRM survey, it costs a little over $4,000 per new hire. Not to mention all the skills, knowledge, and expertise you lose when that employee leaves.

Encourages Growth Mindset

A growth mindset empowers employees to do their best and pursue opportunities within your company. Keeping your employees longer means harnessing the expertise and attracting new talent into your positive atmosphere.

Increased Productivity

As I mentioned previously, people want to engage businesses that are positive, efficient, and where people are happy. Employees want to feel supported and valued. When they are, they are more productive. Because they are so glad, they will share their positive work experience with your company; serving as your brand ambassador.

Revenue Growth

It only makes sense that happy, positive workplace culture will result in better productivity and financial outcomes. You may still have revenue from poor workplace culture, but you're selling yourself short.

What's the Solution?

Chances are that if you are reading this right now, you have some idea that your business could use some assistance, or you're at least curious. It's first essential to know that workplace culture is ever-changing and that creating a positive workplace culture is not an overnight change. It takes time, thoughtfulness, and consideration. Investing in your workplace culture saves you money and will help foster better well-being for all stakeholders involved. The great news is that you've taken time to reflect on your company's workplace culture, and now you are looking for ways to improve it. Below you will find some actions you can take to help move you along your journey:

Strategic Tools

Define Your Goals.

Imagine or Reimagine your workplace culture; what do you want it to be? How closely aligned is it to your mission, vision, and values? What inspires you to do the work you do? Once you answer these questions, incorporate them into your daily operations.

Evaluate Your Workplace Culture As It Is Currently.

Actions speak louder than words, so it's not enough to say your values but not live by them. You must ensure everyone works by those values, from leadership to staff. Only then will you begin to see a difference.

Employ the Right Candidates.

It's essential to ensure that the values of the person you hire align with your company's values. Are they a good fit? When you interview them, describe the companies, mission, vision, and values and ask whether the candidate appreciates them. Describe your company culture to candidates to gauge their response. You want to be sure they fit in with what you have going on; otherwise, you risk an unnecessary and possibly costly shift in workplace culture.

Be 100% Transparent.

It's the only way to pave an excellent foundation to trust. No one likes to be kept in the dark. Coming aboard a company with some not-so-apparent cultural issues can leave new employees feeling betrayed and ready to leave your company.

Use Tools to Evaluate and Re-Evaluate Company Culture.

Using tools like surveys to gauge employee engagement and benchmarking to see how things are moving are just some of the tools to help improve your workplace culture. Remember, creating a positive workplace culture takes time, so some areas may need re-visiting to keep momentum towards your mission, vision, and values.

Most businesses don't have the time, skills, or resources to get things moving in the right direction regarding workplace culture. This is understandable. That's where hiring a workplace culture consultant can be your wisest move.

Hire a Workplace Culture Consultant

A workplace cultural consultant provides much more than the tools listed above. A workplace culture consultant will meet with you to discuss your concerns about workplace culture. The workplace consultant will share with you ways they can assist your company. Usually, this process consists of performing an eternal and internal assessment of your workplace culture, detailed analysis, and plan, along with a recommendation for proceeding. The workplace culture consultant offers easy facilitation throughout the process to ensure the success of the program's implementation. They will educate you on the tools, techniques, and strategies required to implement your plan. The workplace consultant can also take on a more hands-on approach by deploying the program and providing any needed training or workshops recommended in the project. For the duration of the implementation, the workplace culture consultant will provide scheduled benchmarking activities and reports to reveal what progress has been made.

Conversely, businesses with a positive workplace culture tend to have more productive, devoted workers. Thankfully, there are various strategies for enhancing the work experience. Promoting equality, openness, and comprehension can transform a company. Additionally, approachable and visible leaders motivate their teams and keep management informed of pressing issues. Higher staff retention, lower absenteeism, and—best of all—happier, healthier workers are the results of this.