Simple steps to improve workplace culture

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HR Strategy and Culture
Simple steps to improve workplace culture

This week (24th February 2020) is workplace culture week!

A whole week designed to help you focus on the culture within your business or perhaps just another marketing ploy to get us all talking about workplace benefits. Either way, taking some time to think about the culture within your business isn’t a bad thing.

At citrusHR we like to make things refreshingly simple, and whilst culture is anything but simple, we think it can be broken down into bite sized chunks.

What do we mean when we talk about culture at work?

According to Forbes “workplace culture is the shared values, belief systems, attitudes and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share”.

Why is this important?

Often in a busy small business, workplace culture is on the back of your mind as you’ll be busy juggling other pressing tasks.

However, it is important, as a negative workplace culture has been proven to decrease morale, productivity and efficiency, as well as lower staff retention.

Where to start?

Think about where you are now, and where you want to be. Do you have a team all working with you to reach your common goal? Or are you as the business owner driving the business journey.

Businesses need strong leaders, but 1 leader alone can’t shape a culture. You need to understand your team, what motivates them and where they want to go personally and professionally, and couple that with where the business is and where it needs to be.

Once all those things are aligned you will be unstoppable, as you and your whole team will be pushing in the same direction.

5 things that will improve your workplace culture:

Well defined vision and mission – take time to define your vision, where do you want to be and what is the purpose and reason for doing what you do. Take inspiration from other brands that you like and apply that knowledge to your own business.
Clear values – once you know where you are heading think about how you want your team to behave, what is it that makes them unique and how do you deliver something different to your competitors. Having and communicating values can make having some tricky conversations a bit easier if people aren’t behaving in a way that fits with your company values.
Great communication – this is usually the biggest challenge as businesses grows, people get busier and the lines of communication get blurred. Think about how you communicate news and updates to your team, this can be a 5 minute weekly stand up, a weekly team meeting or a monthly whole company briefing. Whatever suits your business, the key is to be consistent and ensure people know what’s happening.
Inclusive work environment – from the Sales Team to the Receptionist, embrace diversity and value every single person in your business, as they all have a role and part to play in your success. The most successful teams have different characters and personalities who complement each other.
Clear goals and rewards – your team need to know what is expected of them, traditionally this is done via an appraisal, but these are becoming less common with more people preferring regular performance conversations or 121’s to talk about their progress towards goals. Both can work well, the key is staff knowing what they need to deliver and then you rewarding them when they do it.
Benefits – there is a basic need for employees to earn money at work, and it’s important that you pay competitive rates to retain your staff, but this is far from the only thing that motivates them. Many employees now value flexibility, and job satisfaction more than just the payslip.

At citrus HR we provide HR advice and guidance on all areas of HR, we have guides on rewarding staff, and our time saving software helps you engage with your employees tracking goals and conversations.

To find out how we could help you improve your workplace culture contact us on info@citrushr.com or give us a call on 0333 014 3888 to find out more about how we can help your business with friendly, expert HR support.