Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Create A Contagious Company Culture In 5 Steps
A contagious company culture can be negative or positive, what we’re talking about here is creating a positive company culture.
Perhaps you’ve realised that your company currently has a negative company culture and you want change it.
It’s not easy to change, it’s not instant, but it can be done with planning and commitment, the rewards of change outweighs any pain endured along the way.
So what must you do to create a contagious culture within your company?
Create a place where people want to come
Theodore Roosevelt famously said “If you build it they will come” It’s probably not as easy as that, however, it’s a starting point.
Look around you, is the work environment inspiring? Does your face light up as you walk into the office every morning? If it’s not pushing the right buttons for you then how can you expect your employees to be jumping up and down about it?
Don’t think that by putting up a few motivating wall posters you’re going to create a positive company culture, people will see through that!
Get your employees involved, it’s their working space so give them ownership over it. What would they like to improve? What colours energise them? How can their work space work for them? Allow their discussions and brainstorming to flow, create a work environment around their suggestions. Look at Pinterest for ideas and look at other company working environments for inspiration.
Make sure that the environment you create is interactive and allows for co-working, this will encourage collaboration, good communication, and innovation between employees.
Engage your employees
Many employees are not engaged in what they do, they completely lack work passion. A large number of employees just go through the motions, day in, day out, a bit like robots.
If you were to engage your employees then you would reap 2.5 x more revenue than your competitors who don’t. When your employees are not engaged they become unhappy, when that happens employees take more time off work due to sickness, on average 15 more sick days per year than happy employees! When employees become severely miserable and disengaged at work they leave, happy, engaged employees stay. If you want to retain good employees then you have to make it a priority to engage them and keep them happy.
Do you hear your employees saying “I love what I’m doing” if you do that’s brilliant, you can be assured that your employees are emotionally connected to the company, their job, their work colleagues and the company culture. If you hear your employees continuously moaning about what they’re doing, they’re probably plodding through the day, looking active but with no connection and you should work on engaging them. You would think that it’s obvious to employers that engaged employees are more productive than disengaged employees, but it can’t be that obvious because there are so many employees that are continuously disengaged!
Connect with your employees, allow them to connect with one another, show them that you care and show them that caring for others is good. Showing them is better than telling them, telling your employees to care doesn’t mean they will, regularly showing them how to care will eventually become a learned behaviour.
Engaged employees feel cared for, they feel valued, they have positive working relationships with those around them, they take pride in their work, they feel they play a big part in the company’s successes, they trust their employers and believe that all promises are delivered.
When you engage your employees you will outdo your competition.
Give your employees a story
I was invited to a successful company a while back and I asked the Managing Director about the company story, it was a wonderful story, it made me tingle. The amazing man who started it up was so determined that he built his first office brick by brick because he didn’t have enough money to buy one. I wanted to work for that company purely because of that story! The problem was not all their employees knew the story, what a shame.
Going back to employee engagement, we chatted about getting employees emotionally connected, what better way to emotionally connect someone than sharing your story with them. Every employee should know the company story because when a story is good it gets shared, your employees become your preachers.
A good story will touch your employees, it will engage them and bond them, more than any induction manual ever will. Because stories are so important, this section needed a great quote but I couldn’t decide which one, so I’ve given you three!
“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here”— Sue Monk Kidd
“In the end, only the stories survive.”— Alexis M. Smith
“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.”— Terry Pratchett
Give your employees the right tools
There’s nothing worse than an employee wanting to do a job well and then not being able to because the tolls are inadequate.
I listened to Ali Clabburn from Liftshare speak at The Nordev conference and he said the very first thing that he made sure he got employees were comfortable chairs. He knew his employees would be sitting in front of screens, every day and he wanted them to be comfortable. You can read more about comfortable chairs as a company benefit in this blog post. The other thing he never compromises on is technology, whatever technology his employees want to make sure the job is done in a fast and effective way, he gets it for them. Ali knows that his employees are attracted by good technology because he wants to retain good employees he makes it a priority that they’ve always got the best tools to work with.
- Your employees will know more about the tools required to do their job than you so make it a regular habit to find out what they need.
- Give them tools so they can collaborate, share ideas and inspire each other.
- Give them tools to make their life easier, not just their job life but their other life, tools to help them work remotely which will help them to achieve a great work life balance.
Encourage your employees to grow
Investing in your employees sends a strong message, that message is “We believe in you”
Make sure they are constantly learning, offer them in-house training, virtual training, or day releases to work shops. It doesn’t have to stop at direct training for the job they do, encourage them to add to their skills by trying something completely different. Research shows that employees who have a creative hobby outside of work were more likely to come up with creative solutions in the workplace. By encouraging creative hobbies it will help your employees grow, which in return will help your company to grow.
Creating a contagious company culture is your weapon in the war for talent.
Begin creating a positive, contagious company culture today!
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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk
In:- Expert