Creating Culture: 3 Tips to Improve Your Culture

If you want to see your company succeed, you have to do something about your work culture. After all, your employees make your company what it is. If they don't feel good about the company they work for, it'll show in your productivity and profits. You want your employees to believe in your company. Here's how to turn things around.

1. Include

Your company has a mission. Despite your best efforts to make your mission meaningful, it won't do your business a bit of good if your employees aren't on-board with it. This doesn't mean that you have to drill it into their heads or make them recite it, but there should be some conversation about your mission statement, how it impacts the company and what's being done to carry out that mission.

It's also important to regularly meet with employees to ask how things can be improved. Ask them how the company measures up to the mission statement. Ask employees how the company is doing in general and how business practices can be improved. Employees want to feel good about their work environment, which means business practices need to run optimally. Also, employees feel happy to work for a company that listens to them. A third benefit is that when a company listens to its employees, team building occurs, and employees are more likely to see an objective through.

2. Inform

You need clear communication in your company. Everyone that's involved in a project needs the same information. Holding regular meetings is a good way to speak to everyone at once. It also ensures that everyone understands objectives, and you can receive feedback on projects.

Get rid of cliques promptly by obliterating hierarchy. Cliques, gossip, rumors and other forms of office politics make an unstable place for people to work. This will turn into constant turnover with an ongoing domino effect that will create an atmosphere of paranoia and one where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. It also creates a place of dread employees hate coming to every day.

3. Create

Employees won't work well if they're in an environment that discourages the flow of their creative juices. Consider these changes to increase productivity and problem-solving.

Regular Breaks-- The brain can only take so much before it wants to shut down. Encourage employees to take regular breaks every couple of hours. Promote playing games during these breaks. It has been shown that gamification helps the brain to solve problems and increase learning potential.

Change the Décor-- Ask employees what they'd like to sit on when they're at their desks. Use various colors throughout the office. Colors and art stimulate the right side of the brain, which is responsible for creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Music has the same effect on the brain.

Make Fun a Priority-- Hold regular games in the office, and reward employees who win or do well. Stock your break room with coffee, snacks and a TV or a radio. Put small games on a table for employees to play. You want to "be about business", but you want your employees to relax too.

Get Familiar With Everyone-- Call employees by their names. Talk with them, and ask them questions about what they want from the company or personal goals. Follow-up with them to see how they're doing. This will make a huge difference in how employees feel about the workplace.

Conclusion

The good news about doing things incorrectly is that you can always change them into positive learning experiences. If something isn't working in your company, improve it, but do that knowing your employees fully support the change.