Improving your company culture

Many people dismiss the concept of company culture as being too ambiguous for the serious world of business, preferring to focus on specific and quantifiable performance indicators. This can be a costly and short-sighted mistake.

Company culture will define the nature of leadership, work ethic, productivity, collaboration and innovation within your business. An underlying issue in your company culture can completely undermine the hard work that you and your employees have been putting into making your business a success.

On the other hand, cultivating a positive, supporting and inspiring company can be a game changer that sees you reach new levels of success. Here are a couple of tips for improving your company culture:

1. Always praise contributions: If your employees offer contributions to the business, for example, suggestions for new products or ways to improve productivity, you should make a point of publically praising them for it. You should do this even if the suggestion is impractical or inappropriate. This will encourage your staff to contribute above and beyond what is expected of them.

2. Encourage collaborative work processes: You should do everything you can to encourage your staff members to work effectively as a team. Some potential ways to promote teamwork include: assigning joint projects, holding workshops, and conducting inter-departmental meetings.

3. Have open channels of communication: The more that everyone in the workplace can communicate and share their opinions and issues, the better your company culture will be. There is nothing more damaging to morale and productivity than issues and grievances that go unresolved.