How do you motivate yourself and your employees? As a business leader, the way you contribute and cultivate a positive and productive work culture has a tremendous impact on employee morale and individual and company performance. It also influences your Company’s reputation.
To Cultivate is to grow and maintain a living thing- in this case your company. You are investing and nurturing employees in your business so that overall the company is able to build, scale, grow and thrive!
As a Fractional COO, I always remind key players in a business that individual behavior & impacts organizational behavior & performance. So you want to be at your best and ensure your company’s core values are present in your workplace and conduct.
A toxic work culture will quickly reveal symptoms in your business- such as high employee turnover, burn out and a poor reputation. Soon potential talent will be reluctant to join or even apply for a position at your company if it is known to have leadership that doesn’t enforce and participates in a positive culture.
Cultivating a Positive and Productive Work Culture:
- Improves team morale
- Avoids employee turnover
- Attracts top talent
- Improves individual and business productivity and performance
- Increases customer satisfaction
Here are 5 Tips to Cultivate a Positive & Productive Company Work Culture
- Lead By Example
A great leader leads by example. Business leaders cultivate a positive example of how to function and operate within the business. He/she sets the tone for the entire organization or team as management. No matter what is happening, a true leader stays composed and respects those within the team.
The leader operates with a certain level of emotional intelligence when handling different personalities and challenges that come with the demands of the business. This goes for everyone in upper and lower management. As management, a leader is held accountable to practice a certain level of transparency to run the business for the benefit of all.
Effective leaders understand they must nurture the work environment and culture.
- Practice Accountability and Transparency
Everyone in a company should be responsible for their actions, behaviors, performance and decisions. This is called being held accountable. Leaders and team members should conduct themselves with a certain level of integrity that exudes the Company’s core values and mission. The culture should allow for transparency.
Transparency creates trust. People are able to wisely share and disclose information, trust one another, have open and honest communication, and operate with openness, accessibility and good citizenship.
- Identify the Roles and Talent – Diversify Your Team
You need an equipped team that is able to problem-solve and take action. Strategize and plan for the roles and talent you need on your team. It will influence the individuals and ideas that are brought to the table.
- Create an organizational structure with clear roles and responsibilities to avoid overlap
- Create clear onboarding processes, policies and procedures, hiring/firing procedures and employee handbooks so everyone in the Company is on the same page
- Create performance reviews and incentives that will motivate employees to have individual goals that are aligned with business goals
- Diversify the talent on your team
- Create team-building activities and events so employees can learn and build relationships that will strengthen your teams
- Collaborate & communicate- avoid working in silos
Most importantly, let everyone know where they fit in the Company based on their roles. This will avoid redundancy, reinventing the wheel, loss of money, time and frustration when people are aware and working together.
Learn the Art of Hiring with tips from Striking Business Gold.
- Run Effective Meetings |Encourage Input |Align Stakeholders (teams)
No one likes useless, boring, unproductive meetings! Most of us have sat in endless drawn-out meetings that produce no results and take away from being productive. It can be dreadful. There are successful ways to run effective meetings. Create dynamic and engaging meetings by creating expectations. Encourage members of your teams to participate, allow input and buy-in and exchange of ideas. This ensures progress is made.
- Ensure progress is made
- Create a cadence for agendas and follow-up items ready for meetings so business is moving forward
- Prepare and avoid scheduling meetings just to schedule a meeting
A meeting should serve a purpose with the goal of having output and outcomes that are followed through. Otherwise, it’s a waste of people’s time.
- Communicate and Manage Cultural Shifts
Communication is essential in any organization. It improves morale, productivity, keeps top talent and considers that everyone has different working styles. There should be clear channels of communication regarding projects and changes in the organization so that people feel respected and know of expectations and deadlines.
Key communication is needed especially for mergers and acquisitions, change management, turnaround management, project management, and process improvement.
A Fractional COO can assist with all aspects found in improving company culture and assisting a CEO.
INC. recommends building and maintaining a positive culture in challenging times. Create a culture so that your business is built to thrive, not just survive. Employees will be more engaged and less resistant to change. You will create an environment where others are open to sharing information, learning, building relationships and a positive reputation.
Ultimately, your company will create brand trust, good communication and good citizenship in the community.
Written by Sasha Lalite
Presented by lastyleleaders.com
