Fostering a positive work culture can benefit employees and the company in a number of ways. Being open, honest, and understanding with employees can increase productivity, raise job satisfaction levels, and improve teamwork within and between departments. There are several ways on how to improve your company’s work culture; here are a few of the most popular ones.
Be Transparent
Keeping employees in the loop about recent news and events with the company will build a sense of trust. For news, both good and bad, sharing it is a necessity to create and maintain an atmosphere of trust and understanding.
Not just transparent with large company news, but transparency with supervisors will help build company culture. Having a supervisor update their employees with what they are working on, scheduled meetings they have, and what times they are available to talk go a long way toward building a friendly and open climate for the company.
Be Flexible With Employees
Being understanding with your employees and giving them some room to be flexible in their work keeps them engaged and shows that you understand their needs. This flexibility can be offering extended time off due to personal matters or giving them the option to come into work earlier or later. If a certain schedule doesn’t work for them, you can find out if certain accommodations will help.
Figure out how to encourage your employees to take breaks. Having them get away from their work for a few minutes helps revitalize them for the rest of the workday. Give them time away from their work to collect themselves and decompress before finishing out the day. This helps with stress management and can prevent employee burnout.
Recognize Employee Achievement
It can be hard for employees to put value or meaning into their work from day-to-day. Having a program that recognizes the work and achievements of workers will encourage them to put forth more effort and lets them know that they are doing important work. These recognitions can be large scale, company-wide awards, or they can be as simple as congratulating someone within individual departments or teams.
Giving employees this type of feedback lets them know that they are doing a good job and that their work is valued within the company. This positive feedback motivates employees to succeed and can decrease employee turnover rates up to 31 percent.
To improve your company’s work culture means that you will have employees that will work harder, find more value in their work, and increase productivity across the board. And it all comes at no cost—just simply opening up communication lines.
