In the last couple of years, building and maintaining an optimal company culture has become more important than ever. The pandemic and consequent Great Resignation created a job market where fostering a positive company culture is crucial for attracting quality employees and retaining them.
It’s easy to find yourself too busy focusing on targets and performance and temporarily forgetting the human aspect of managing a business, which is a costly mistake. After all, everyone is human, and the sense of community that we promote plays a major role in the happiness and satisfaction of both employees and management. That’s why it’s important to have a look at the dynamics that every company needs to consider and adopt in 2022 to remain competitive. Following are what I have determined through my years in business to be the six pillars of a positive, productive company culture.
Intentional Communication
Building relationships with employees is just like building relationships in your personal life—communication is key. Albeit important, just being available and open to hear what others on the team have to say does not suffice. Being open when people are ready to share is the bare minimum. As a leader, it is your responsibility to create an environment in which even those who are not naturally inclined to share and talk feel comfortable to do so.
Women, people with various disabilities, individuals from certain racial backgrounds, and other groups might feel underrepresented and unheard, without you even realizing it. You need to actively search for ways to integrate everyone into the communication process. In other words, aim for intentional communication—listening and watching closely and carefully timing check-ins with specific team members—instead of expecting that all communication will happen on an ad hoc basis.
As a starting point, you can approach your team and have a candid conversation where you seek to understand if anything prevents them from engaging in meaningful communication, what those things may be, and what you can do to correct it. Then respond by making those corrections accordingly. It is always important for us to build good communication skills in relationships. Because this is one of the key factors in the success of relationships, both at work and in relationships with your beloved partner. You can find out more about relationships and personal growth on the website https://mentalmasterylab.com/
Bottom-Up Management
Tons of literature has been written on the benefits of a bottom-up approach in managing a business in recent years. Still, the importance of this strategy cannot be emphasized enough, and I say this from personal experience. In every single one of my business endeavors I have listened carefully and intentionally to the ideas, methods, and needs of my employees, and I am confident that this has been a major factor in my success so far.
As a leader, your responsibility is not to decide on priorities and develop strategies unilaterally before handing them down to the rest of the team and expecting performance. Instead, it is your responsibility to harvest the best of everyone and to make everyone feel like they make a meaningful contribution to the business. After all, if you aim to hire the best, why wouldn’t you let them show their full capability?
Meanwhile, in the bottom-up management approach, you need to remain constantly available to support your team when they need you. Leaders are there to make sure that their team succeeds at all levels—not the other way around.
Innovation-Driven Culture
Innovation doesn’t just mean the product or service your company has set out to create or provide, but it should be the guiding principle in everything that the team and the company does.
Even if disrupting the industry is not the mission of your company, building a company culture of innovation in all aspects of how you do business will transform how work gets done, usually with the benefit of increasing productivity. Think processes, schedules, workflows—all of it should serve the people working towards a common goal. Experimenting and innovating in these areas can lead to radical shifts for your team and company success.
Your employees should be constantly involved in this. Contributing to building the way they work will unleash their creativity and also help them play a part in driving the business forward, which will enhance their self-evaluation and make them want to achieve even more.
Learning and Self-Improvement
While hiring qualified professionals is a must, leaders need to understand that employees are not a final product. They can and should improve their skills and their expertise all the time.
Promoting a company culture of learning and self development is important for two main reasons. First, investing in the skills of your staff helps your company grow, as most of us are aware. However, the second benefit is even more important and impactful—providing employees with opportunities to develop and improve makes them feel appreciated as well as accomplished, which contributes directly to their motivation and to retention.
According to a survey conducted by Gallup on behalf of Amazon in 2021, for young employees (18-24 years) upskilling is the third most important job benefit after health insurance and disability. Even at the age of 55, more than half of surveyed employees perceive upskilling as extremely or very important.
So, make sure to set aside some budget and some time for providing such opportunities to your team. They will appreciate it and pay you back.
OKRs Mindset
The OKRs mindset has been around for a long time. Its history can be traced back to the 1970s, and Andy Grove of Intel is widely accepted as the father of the OKRs mindset. However, even today a surprising percentage of businesses do not operate under the OKRs framework in spite of the proven benefits.
Many think that OKRs is just about setting up targets and achieving them. The model goes far beyond that, and that’s why it is such an important element of a productive work culture.
The OKRs model answers not only the what question but also the why question. Meaning, both management and employees understand what needs to be done over the next quarter or year, but even more importantly, they understand why it needs to be done. Every action is related to a key result which is related to an objective. In that way, everyone comprehends how their seemingly small, individual tasks contribute to the bottom line. And when you know why you do something, you feel more motivated and perform better.
Second, building OKRs into the company culture helps to set up expectations and avoid misunderstandings. Both managers and employees know what to expect and what is expected of them.
The “Why”
Last but not least, a company culture of alignment in purpose can go a long way. In all my job interviews I leave time for a couple of questions which aim to evaluate whether the candidate is truly passionate about the problem we’re solving. Previous work experience is important, but there are questions that can dig deeper and go beyond. I always want to know why someone wants a particular job. Desiring a paycheck is understandable, but particularly in startups and high-growth companies, it will not be enough. This isn’t to say I expect employees to give up their lives for their jobs—which is a completely toxic mindset—but rather, I want to know that the entire team is lit up with excitement about what we’re doing.
Take a few minutes this week to think about your company culture and ask yourself if these six dynamics are built into it. While these values and practices are not difficult to implement, they can do miracles for your team, your business, and you as a leader.