Are you getting the most out of your employees?
The truth is, most companies don’t do enough to help their employees reach their true potential within the company.
Part of this is due to insufficient training, but a big part of it is also due to a lackluster company culture.
The quality of your company culture goes a long way in determining the quality of your employees’ work, as well as their dedication to the company and its success.
Today, we’ll give you some of our Faxburner steps to take to immediately improve your company culture and make your employees happier.
Let’s get started!
Give Employees Some Autonomy
In his book, Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, has an impactful quote…
“Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
It’s good to give some direction – but you shouldn’t micro-manage your employees. When you give them the autonomy to take an idea or task and run with it, they’ll feel empowered, and often do a much better job with it.
Hire Rockstar Employees
It’s a lot easier to cultivate a great company culture when you already have a group of great employees.
Fine-tune your hiring process, aim to get more referrals, ask more unique and pointed interview questions. These things will help determine which employees are a great fit for the culture you want to build.
And then… be willing to pay competitively. You can’t expect to secure and keep rockstar employees if there are better opportunities all around them.
Give Them a Voice
When a company has strict hierarchies, everybody isn’t given a voice. The lower tier employees feel like they can’t really make an impact, and so they rarely even try to.
But when you give them a voice and allow them to speak up and voice their concerns and ideas, you empower them and make them feel like they’re making an impact in their role.
So, don’t just leave all the big decisions up to management. Allow employees to chime in and add value where possible.
Cultivate a Team Atmosphere
There’s a difference between being a team with a singular goal and mission, and being a group of individuals.
Teams work together and are driven towards a common goal, while individuals look out mostly for themselves first. What’s more, teams are often greater than the sum of their parts.
So, how can you start cultivating this “team” type of atmosphere? Here are some tips:
- Use the “Team” terminology throughout company language. In job postings, use terminology like “Join our team.” On your website, have a “meet our team” section.
- Encourage employees to work together. Consider ways where you can create more team-oriented tasks for your employees to work on together.
- Host out-of-work retreats and events. One of our employees used to work as a door-to-door guy. One of his favorite parts of the job was that once a month, the office would play a flag football game in the morning before they officially started the workday. That’s just one easy idea for building that team camaraderie.
- Celebrate successes. On both an individual and team level it’s important to celebrate success. It’s highly motivational, both for those who are achieving and for those who are aspiring to.
Consider Feedback Carefully
When you’re at the top, it can be easy to let your ego get in the way. In doing so, you’re likely to ignore feedback or not take it seriously.
Avoid this by keeping an open-door policy and considering feedback you get from employees and associates. This feedback will give you a good sense of where the team stands, as well as things you can do to improve the culture.
Just by listening to employees and considering their feedback, they’ll appreciate it and feel like they’re a valued part of the team.
Conclusion
Company culture is a crucial part of every business.
A poor company culture will lead to higher turnover rates, lesser quality work, and unhappy employees. But a great company culture will do the opposite. Your employees will be invested in your company’s success, happy in their roles, and motivated to do their work to the best of their ability.
So, follow the action steps here to improve your company culture and make your employees happier.
What other ways have you helped improve your company culture? Let us know in the comments below!
