How to create great company culture?

Company culture is the behaviour of everyone that works in a company and the meaning that people attach to those behaviours. This is not the most helpful definition, company culture is something that is already in your business, it’s not something that employees bring with them, it’s something that already exists. There are a variety of elements that make up company culture including work environment, company values, mission, ethics and goals. We have outlined a few ways to create a great company culture: 

• Overcome office politics by instilling kindness and empathy. 

Creating an empathetic, compassionate workplace is not simple, it requires your employees to get to know their colleagues, but this won’t happen by itself, it needs to be organisation wide. You need to understand the problems and struggles of your colleagues, which can be emotionally and mentally draining on yourself and expose issues within your company.  

However, many HR professionals find that a compassionate workplace is a major factor for employee retention. If all departments are aware of what’s going on with the other departments, it will allow for a better, more collaborative, working relationship.  

• Ask and listen to your employees. 

It is important to make sure your employees feel that their opinion matters, this can help them to feel like they are a valued member of the team. This can be achieved by having regular one-to-ones with your staff, this gives you the opportunity to really listen to their worries and you can work with them to help overcome any issues. There needs to be clear, open, two-way communication so that your employees feel like they can approach you with their problems without any fear that there will be any negative repercussions. 

• Align stated culture with actual culture.  

You might claim that you have a fun, informal culture but your staff might not be reflecting that in their behaviours. The culture of a business starts from the very beginning, so it is vital that when you are recruiting you are finding people that have a personality that fits into the company culture you are trying to build. Once you have the right employees, who are engaged with the company, this culture will start to show itself to others outside the business and can help to build your company reputation.  

• Planning the future together. 

You will have company-wide values and goals, but you might need to consider the different roles that departments play and look at developing a mission statement and values for each of them, so the team members have a better connection to the business goals. These connections can help with business growth and increase profit, even though you might not be a profit-focused company.  

All the points above work together to build the future of your business: the right team, in the right environment can help to take your business to the next level. They will also allow you to see areas that your employees are consistently having issues with you can work with your colleagues to overcome them.