A Four-Week Plan to Help Improve Your Company Culture
Houston Business Women Management Consultant
A positive company culture can make a huge difference in your employees' happiness and your own bottom line.
Week 1: Start two-way conversations.
It's one of the simplest, yet most effective, ways to improve your company's culture: Talk to your employees. And don't just talk at them, talk with them. Open communication can be a key driver of employee engagement.
By making it your mission to foster open communication in your workplace, you can make a personal contribution to improving your team's culture. Ask about employees' weekend plans in the break room, or invite team members to give their opinions in meetings. Just make sure the conversation is a two-way street.
Week 2: Share some knowledge.
In addition to starting two-way conversations, make it a point to share a piece of industry- or career-related insight with employees this week. Sharing your expertise with others can not only be helpful, it can also help employees do their jobs better and avoid potential oversights in the future. Knowledge-sharing also promotes communication between teams, which can help cultivate company transparency and professional relationships among coworkers. All of these pieces can come together to create a more unified and informed team, which is great for business and for employee happiness.
So, whether you share some industry tips in your company's newsletter or use them to wrap up your next meeting, make yourself a helpful resource to your teams.
Week 3: Support your teams.
Sharing knowledge with your employees is a great way to start supporting them. However, there are many other ways leaders should provide support to team members.
All of these actions (or lack of) are important because they all provide a supportive framework in which your employees can learn and grow professionally. Without clear direction or proper feedback, employees may be unaware of a job well done or unsure of how to improve on performance. Consequently, a lack of support can be bad for culture and also for efficiency.
This week, pay attention to moments when your teams could use more support and either provide it yourself, or alert your senior managers to ways they could be more supportive of their departments.
Week 4: Challenge your employees.
If you follow the suggestions outlined in this post, then by this point in time you'll hopefully have been able to notice some of the ways that your efforts have paid off. Maybe you learned more about a team member through casual conversation, or maybe one of your departments was able to be more productive thanks to some of the tips you shared. Whatever it is, take a moment to think about the simple ways you were able to make your culture just the slightest bit better these last few weeks.
Now, take this week to encourage your employees to use these practices. Take some time to address department managers and encourage them to follow these steps. Ask them to focus on two-way conversations, share more knowledge with others and be supportive of their individual departments.
The more employees you involve in these simple practices, the better you can help your culture become.
Source: American Express
Patty Block, President and Founder of The Block Group, established her company to advocate for women-owned businesses, helping them position their companies for strategic growth. Charting the course for impactful, sustainable, profitable businesses, the beacon is control: of your strategic direction, your money, your time, your staffing, and your ability to bring in business. The Block Group brings together the people, resources and ideas that build results.
Houston Business Women Management Consultant.
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