When it comes to building a strong and talented workforce, recruitment is only half of the story; it’s equally important for employers to implement strategies and policies aimed at retaining their top employees once they’ve been brought on board. In pursuit of this goal, the development and maintenance of an optimized workplace culture should be a top priority.
What is workplace culture?
“Workplace culture” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but many professionals only have a vague understanding of what it actually means. We’re here to clear the air on this subject.
Simply put, a company’s culture is the aggregate of values, personalities, workplace norms, and qualities that endow it with a unique and intangible feeling. In other words, when we talk about culture in this context, we’re talking about the quality of the day-to-day employee experience at a particular workplace.
4 Ways to Develop Company Culture that Helps You Keep Your Best Employees
With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why building a strong company culture should be a top priority for every employer. Healthy workplace cultures lead to happy and engaged employees, who in turn produce high-quality work more consistently. There are plenty of studies (such as this one) that have proven this to be true.
So what can employers do now that will allow them to build an optimized workplace culture? Here are four simple and effective ways to get started:
1. Offer flexible work options to your employees.
Recent research has conclusively shown that employees tend to be happier in work environments that offer flexible scheduling and remote work options than those that do not.
2. Increase (and improve) your communication with employees.
It’s important that you make time to check in with your employees on a fairly regular basis to make sure that they’re able to voice any concerns and that their needs at work are being met. Managers who only rarely engage and communicate with their employees will consistently find themselves overseeing a workforce that by and large feels isolated, manipulated, and dissatisfied.
3. Acknowledge your employees’ achievements.
Managers routinely miss opportunities to improve workplace morale and increase feelings of cohesion by giving public praise to an employee who has made a notable accomplishment. By acknowledging an employee’s achievement in front of his or her peers, you can quickly and easily communicate to your employees that they work within a culture that values individual contributions and communal support.
4. Ask for your employees’ input when making important decisions.
There’s perhaps no more effective way of providing your employees with a sense of camaraderie than by including them in the decision-making process. You don’t need to ask for their input on every decision, obviously. But when you’re considering making a change to the workplace that will ultimately affect the day-to-day experience of your employees, you should make every effort to ask for and be open to their input. In all likelihood, they will be able to offer you valuable insights into how the workplace as a whole might be improved.
Building an optimized workplace is not something that can be achieved overnight, but there are steps that can be taken every day – some small and some large – to gradually work towards a workplace that will help to make your employees feel content. To learn more about what you can do to build a stronger workplace culture as well as a happier, more secure workforce, contact us today.