7 Ways to build a strong company culture

In a modern workplace, there are several ways to create a strong business culture.

How can you create a corporate culture that is both sustainable and appealing in today’s workplace? This is a question that has been bothering a lot of businesses lately.

The traditional idea of work as a place where you go to receive a pay has been challenged by the millennial workforce.Your workplace is where you spend most of your time and subsequently your life. Hence it’s critically important to your well-being where you spend your time.

Here are some tips to assist your company develop a strong business culture that will appeal to younger staff.

1. Promote Design thinking –

One of the most important characteristics of a modern-day corporation is its employees’ mentality. Fortunately, you can modify your thinking by refining your cognitive process.
Design Thinking is a feature that allows your staff to think in an organized manner. This is crucial for organizations that are geared towards growth.

For example — The sales team in a fintech startup, the team relies on cold calling and using the same script for all the customers. This is a redundant mention of working.

If employees use Design thinking they would look for data about the people who use similar fintech products then create probability maps of each customer by creating common metrics then they will create different scripts for different customer segments. This exercise will make their conversion ratios much better.

2. Encourage learning-

Learning is an aspect that helps the creative juices flowing for the employees. It gives the employees a chance to develop themselves, Learning ensures your company talent is growing. It is of paramount importance to book club, Upskilling sessions, personal development session for the employees to grow themselves.

For example — Wingify is a tech start-up that has a discord channel for book club. The founder recommends one book each month and at the end of the month, the readers (employees) discuss the learnings from the book recommended. This is a perfect example of encouraging learning.

3. Big yes to Job rotation –

The benefits of job rotation have been discussed and emphasized in almost all the management books but are seldom brought into practice by modern-day organizations. Job rotation for entry/mid-level employees is beneficial as it allows them to learn the nitty-gritty details of their department.

Job rotation has many proven benefits such as on the job upskilling opportunities, less miscommunication amongst employees. Job Rotation increases the likelihood of an employee getting promoted.

For example — A marketing intern at a digital agency, The intern could be started on content writing assignments then moved to caption writing then to social media post scheduling this job rotation will ensure that his chances of being a social media manager are increased. This overall knowledge will help him become an efficient social media manager.

4. Educate instead of belittle –

Organizations have predominately geared towards a model where mistakes are belittled. Mistakes mean the end of the world treatment towards employees. But this approach needs to change. These archaic ways of management aren’t going to help organizations attract top talent.

Employees need to be taught to learn from their mistakes. Modern era bosses are more aligned to help employees learn from their mistakes instead of bashing them in front of their coworkers.

For Example — if a new employee makes a mistake, the person in the leadership position should explain to the employee where did he go wrong and how can he rectify his wrong, what the employee should do to make sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes again. This exercise will help create a safe space for the employee to make mistakes while learning from them.

5. Honesty and Trust –

These are the virtues that should be promoted in an organization to hear them back from the employees. This starts by promoting these virtues from the top level authorities so that it gets promotes to the bottom. Always remember culture is set by the leaders of the organization and not the employees.

For example — Kingfisher airlines was a company that was known for its “larger than life” image. The leadership at KingFisher propagated the image of affluence and when the mirage of “larger than life” fell, the employees were the ones who had to foot the bill for this debacle.

6. Emphasis on work life balance –

Work-Life balance has been a concept that has recently gained popularity as people are getting more and more focused on personal well-being. This is something organizations should be taking into consideration while designing work structures. The employee shouldn’t be overloaded with work. Studies have shown employees are productive, happier if they have a proper work life balance

Fun Fact -

Jeff Bezos doesn’t believe in the concept of work life balance, He rather calls it “work life harmony” he thinks the concept of balance is flawed when it comes to work and life. Finding harmony with work and life is more doable.

7. Professional Development –

Clear career progression is what helps driven individuals stay in an organization, Modern day companies need to design workflows & systems that will take into consideration this factor as well, A clear career progression keeps the employees competitive and makes them better to get the promotion. This sort of system also helps to differentiate the driven, performer employees from lazy, unmotivated ones.

For example — sales department professional development path — sales intern — sales executive — assistant manager — Manager — regional head — Head of Department.

In Conclusion, multiple factors affect how company culture is set. It is difficult to rank these factors according to their importance but it would be safe to assume that culture is something that is defined by the leadership in the organization. The leadership sets the tone for how messages, ideas, and thoughts would be passed down the organization.

If the leadership passes down stress and pressure that would lead to low employee morale which will, in turn, affect the productivity of the employee. If the leaders act harshly or callously with employees that will, in turn, become the culture there.

Hence, it’s critical as to what role the leadership takes in dealing with employees. If you’re a leader these above-mentioned pointers should be a good guide for you to set the culture right in your company or department.