Workspace culture is the environment that you create for your employees. Positive workplace culture attracts talent, drives engagement, impacts happiness and satisfaction. It affects performance which is the mix of your organization’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors and attitudes that contribute to the emotional and relational environment of your workplace. It plays a powerful role in determining their work satisfaction, relationships and progression.
Workplace culture is an important factor to all workplaces. It determines how pleasant or toxic your work environment is. It has a direct influence on how your employee fits into the organization and your organization’s ability to attract and retain employees, because it shapes the environment that they work in. It is very important to have a good workspace culture, it’s natural to want to work in an environment you enjoy spending time in. This means that if you want the best staff for your team, you’ll have to invest in creating a strong workplace culture. A good workspace culture drives financial performance. It also encourages your employees to voice their opinions and ideas.
You already understand the importance of having a strong company culture, but even with the desire to build one, it’s not always obvious what steps to take.
Here are some important and simple features for you to follow to improve your workspace culture:
Management and leadership
Your management system should be strong as to get better output. Whereas good leadership plays an important role in improving your workspace management. It should use a wide range of tools and techniques to gain insight and clarity about who they are, what they are good at, and what they can strengthen or delegate. A good management and leadership thinks of the employees and coworkers as integral part of the team, and not just as another group of people to work with.
Trust your employees to manage their responsibilities effectively, and let go of the idea that work has to happen a certain way at a certain time. Embrace and inspire employees’ autonomy. Letting them do so, will allow them to make the sometimes difficult but incredibly rewarding leap from being held accountable to their responsibilities to embracing accountability as they take on, and own initiatives.
Digital Workspace Strategy
This can also be one way to improve workspace culture by implementing digital tools in your workspace. Don’t just do it with phones and Google Docs. The key to success depends on the implementation of a digital workplace strategy – requiring one that is capable of driving true change within the organization.
By intelligently combining the technologies that many businesses already use, the digital workplace has broken down the communication barriers and is transformation employee experience to one promoting efficiency, growth, and innovation. Here are a few examples:
- Chat rooms, private and group messaging
- Discussion Forums
Chat and Collaboration
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Apps for Business
- Video conferencing
- Zoom
- Skype
- Google Hangouts
Project Management Tools
- Trello
- Jira
- Asana
Strong Co-Worker Relationship
It is very important to build strong relationship with each other. Working relationships take time to mature, so focus on being consistent and dependable.
- Develop trust with colleagues – Develop trust by guarding each other, encouraging confidence and not gossiping.
- Work with your Team – Communicate well by listening and speaking clearly.
- Be respectful of others – If you work in a shared office space, limit personal phone calls and distractions such as radios. Maintain a professional and courteous attitude.
- Take responsibility for your mistakes, rather than casting blame on someone or something else. Integrity is central to trust. Be fair and honest in all your dealings. Share resources and information with coworkers.
Creating an Employee-Centric Workspace
An employee-centered workplace is one in which all individuals, programs, processes, and systems are focused on helping employees become fully successful. Assess your employees’ level of satisfaction with their supervisors. Ensure that all employees are in the right jobs – that their talents are appropriate for the work they must do. Few things are more miserable than doing a job for which one is not a good fit.
Conclusion:
As the business or space owner, ask this question to yourself, do your employees see work as a way to make an impact? Are they passionate about the work they do? The better you understand their aspirations and goals, the better you can help your team to see the purpose in their work. A great culture attracts the best workers, increases overall retention and improves performance.