Company culture is important for the profitability of an organization. We are no longer live in an era where all we can expect from employees is to follow orders. Businesses today need people who can think and analyse the situation, make decisions, take initiatives, and come up with new ideas.
The corporate workforce today is composed of highly trained, smart people who think much beyond following orders and just getting things done. To make employees capable of delivering all that they are required to, we ought to build a company culture that supports it.
Company culture refers to a set of values that heavily influence behaviour and operations in the organization. Every company has a culture, whether it is intentionally built or formed slowly over time. Regardless of how the culture came into the existence, company culture highly impacts employee satisfaction and productivity in the organisation.
Work culture influences business strategy, and that makes it important to pay close attention to what type of culture we form. If a business is strategizing for more innovation, the culture needs to value creativity and initiatives for new ideas.
It is also reflected in how employees approach their work, how clients or customers are treated, as well as how colleagues work together as a team. All people have a different set of values of their own. That makes it crucial to clearly define your organization’s values, so it becomes easier for employees to follow a common set of values.
A positive work culture soon reflects on your bottom line and supports your business strategy. In this blog, we will discuss steps we can use to build the right culture for your business strategy.
Also Read: How To Preserve Company Culture During Changing Times
1. Productivity
We know that companies can improve productivity through a strong and supportive work culture. The friendly environment keeps employees more engaged in their work and also helps to improve retention.
Overall, a positive work culture boosts productivity significantly. The more you want your employees to do, the better the work culture should be, so it can naturally raise productivity. This is more significant when your employees are directly interacting with your customers.
The way your employees are treated and how satisfied they are at work will be directly reflected in the way they interact with the customers, playing an important role in how much business you get. Employees do the work they are assigned even in the worst possible work cultures, but the quality of output is heavily affected there. It is usually way below satisfactory. You can sense the work is done half-heartedly.
The culture that encourages innovation tends to attract more creativity from the employees. New ideas flow smoothly, and that helps you nurture a problem-solving attitude in the staff. The inclination towards trying new ideas keeps your business on top, with the ability to constantly adapt to changes in the market quickly.
Employees feel supported by the company, and they are often ready to put in more effort than is usually expected of them to do their job better and enhance productivity.
2. Work Relationships
Casual face-to-face interaction among employees is frequently used for idea-sharing. This also serves as a means of quickly resolving any workflow issues. If employees work as a team, they are more cooperative and supportive of each other.
There is less friction or misunderstanding. Sometimes, when they face problems, they can easily resolve them without involving their superiors. Workplace relationships take time to cultivate, but relationships at work also heavily contribute to employee retention.
Take a look at your organizational culture and the way your employees interact with their team members or with other teams. Think about what is missing and come up with strategies to encourage more interaction in workforce management.
Having a common dining area can be a great place for employees to interact with each other. Team lunches or fun outings can also help to build good relationships. Even though people like to work remotely, they do not like to be disconnected.
We all need some sense of connection or community. If your organisation is working in a remote or hybrid setup, you can still work on arranging some group activities and games over virtual meetings to encourage team building.
3. Employee Retention
It is difficult to replace an employee and takes months to find the right candidate. Meanwhile, there is extra work for other employees and a loss of productivity. It is also costly to find the right talent. On average, it takes 4-9 months of the salary of that employee.
There are multiple reasons why employees leave their jobs, and one of those is stress. The more supportive the work culture is, the longer people feel comfortable staying in the organization. It is observed that those companies that consciously put effort into building a healthy culture with a good employee engagement system have a higher rate of retention.
People like to work for firms that have a friendly and supportive work culture. That helps you to not only retain your current employees but also attract top talent from the market.
4. Motivation
Motivation is important for employees to look forward to their work, and company culture can play a significant role here. A vibrant, friendly organisational culture that makes people feel energetic is a great motivator that works constantly to keep your employees focused.
It can also be a significant part of your brand image. A vision guides company culture and the employees. Those organisations that lack a clear vision cannot make a firm strategy and just keep reacting to market forces.
There is continuous instability and a lack of direction. The constant changes in the strategy often confuse employees, and this leads to a lack of focus and disinterest in putting forth effort.
The culture also impacts employee morale. Low morale contributes to absenteeism and a dysfunctional environment. It happens when companies do not have long term goals, and doing a moderate job can be enough in a non-motivated environment.
The lack of goals and direction with proper values is reflected at every step in the organization. There is plenty of miscommunication, friction between co-workers, and a lack of clarity on what is expected from the employees.
The organization’s culture needs to stick to its values to form a strong strategy. It gives everybody clarity on what they are supposed to do, and they feel motivated to express new ideas and go the extra mile to achieve the goals.
5. Innovation
Organizations with a well-established and friendly culture tend to innovate more often than those who do not have an established culture. It is observed that the company culture is important for supporting innovation.
The culture that dictates the employees on what to do and urges them to stick to the standard procedure does not give much authority to make decisions and employees find it difficult to take any initiative. Whereas, to promote innovation, the culture should give employees the power to make decisions concerning their work.
This encourages them to experiment and try new things and invent better ways. The culture is an investment that pays in the long run. Determines whether to commit to do better or go along with traditional methods and soon find yourself irrelevant in the competition.
The culture that gives the staff autonomy over their tasks to experiment and innovate tend to help companies grows faster. This also makes your organization more flexible and adaptive to the changes in the market and gives you a strong competitive market strategy to thrive.
Summary
It may not be very evident, but company culture plays an important role in many aspects of work. The market is constantly evolving and there is rising competition in every field. In such a scenario we need innovation to stay on par with the dynamic improvements and gain a competitive advantage.
If the work culture is still clinging to the order and following the model you will be soon thrown out of the competition. The productivity of any organization as a whole is the collective output of the employees.
When work culture is not supportive to the work relationships and staff feel detached and unmotivated it negatively impacts the performance of the company.
An unfriendly work environment leads to high employee turnover and more money is spent to hire repeatedly in addition to the loss of productivity. That is why it is important to consciously build a company culture that helps an organization to grow.
