Whether or not you are aware of it, your business has a culture. If you aren’t aware of that reality, your company culture is evolving without guidance – and you are not in control of its direction or influence. If you are conscious of company culture, you most likely realize that proactively working to define and refine that culture has significant value for impacting your employees, establishing your brand, and growing your business. Well-defined, cohesive company culture can boost morale, productivity, and revenue and set you apart from your competition.
This article looks at expert tips for creating a cohesive company culture focused on achieving your goals.
- Encourage open sharing: In an open culture, employees and team members are comfortable sharing with their colleagues – whether passing along information or asking for support. One way management can cultivate this culture is to encourage sharing on team calls – asking employees to describe what they are working on and to share if they need help. Other employees can then offer their support or suggestions, if applicable. Confidently sharing and asking for (or providing) assistance builds strong teams and open culture.
- Create ownership: The most successful cultures run on committed team members that perform at their best. By ensuring that each employee understands how their individual efforts contribute to the organization’s overall success, the business as a whole will experience a performance increase. Creating a feeling of ownership down to specific metrics will illustrate how the employee’s contribution fits into the bigger picture. Dashboards – corporate, department, team, and individual – tell everyone precisely where they stand in real time.
- Empower decision-making: Providing every employee with the tools (including appropriate guidance) to make independent decisions will cultivate a culture of freedom, respect, and trust. Employees working in this environment tend to respect one another’s contributions and build strong team bonds.
- Leverage transparency: It can be challenging to develop a cohesive culture that includes your remote and hybrid employees. Experts recommend using online tools to establish and maintain transparency, keeping all employees in sync, regardless of location. Legacy tools such as Slack or Google Hangouts allow for ongoing conversation and reciprocal feedback to keep project transparency at the forefront. In addition, intuitive online knowledge portals are now entering the arena as powerful transparency tools.
- Practice genuine behavior: Instilling a cohesive culture of honesty and transparency starts with leadership. Being genuine in all interactions – whether CEO or front line – allows the trait to permeate both internal and external activities. Executives, owners, and managers can develop a genuine interaction and feedback culture by leading by example.
- Leave room for fun: Running a company is serious business, but leadership should still leave room for some lighthearted fun. From silly inter-office contests to planning team dinners, fostering a culture of camaraderie and fun leads to team creativity and stronger relationships. Employees and team members become friends, and a more cohesive culture ensues.
- Knowledge dissemination is key: This aspect of developing a cohesive culture is so powerful it deserves a bit more attention. After all, what better way to make sure everyone is on the same page than to provide clear and accessible documentation regarding all company processes, procedures, and best practices? Companies that aggregate this company-specific information into one easily searchable portal allow every employee to have the relevant and timely information they need to do their job.
Making knowledge guides, FAQs, and SOPs available to all employees at all times fulfills several of the experts’ recommendations for cohesive culture building. It encourages sharing, empowers individual decision-making, and ensures transparency – all of which cultivate a sense of ownership and accountability. How can you get started in creating this comprehensive knowledge portal? KLONE is here to help.