What is Work Culture and How to Maintain It
Work Culture is the ethic and integrity of the vision of your company that binds each and every member of the company. It helps in always having a crystal clear vision of the company, its values and how it should function. Generally speaking, small businesses get it right when it comes to creating a strong corporate culture. Why? Simply put, creating a family atmosphere with fewer employees is easy. In a small business, the practicality of open communication with the boss is clear. How? Business owners are hands-on at the start-up level and communicate with workers every day.
However, as a business grows, it is not so easy to maintain the flavour of the family and the personality of the small business. Company culture is an ecosystem that is dynamic. To live as it grows, it needs to be nurtured. Underwatering, or deliberately overfeeding, will see the destruction and death of your social environment.
It’s not easy to maintain the work culture as your business grows, but it will have a positive impact on your success. Here are some of the ideas on how to do it effectively:
Let Your Core Values Speak:
Incorporate the cultural norms into the core values of your company to preserve the tight-knit environment you and your staff know and love. For example, your employee wellness initiative may result in weekly catered lunches. Or a happy hour team may represent the commitment of the organization to work-life balance. What separates you from your rivals are your principles. These may include characteristics such as integrity and commitment, as well as personal growth and incentive value. Social events for your workers will help foster a sense of closeness and help keep a strong culture of the organization alive.
Be Careful When Choosing New Faces:
Hiring wisely is one of the easiest ways to preserve corporate culture. Ensure sure your new hires are not only trained— ensure sure they fit well. Use the mentality of a group when you talk. Make sure that they blend into the people for whom they will interact on a daily basis. For an interview, it is important to ask questions about your core values. Be transparent about your business’ core values and hire only workers that you are sure to understand and match your beliefs. Just because someone is productive at work, it doesn’t mean they’re not going to be harmful to your company culture.
To Know More: Pros And Cons of a Flexible Work Schedule for a Company
Open communication is the key:
Communication is usually fluid and clear in a small business with 20 or fewer employees, and feeding back to staff is simple. Business communication is similar to the body’s blood circulation. It takes the necessary oxygen (or messages) for every cell in the body (or every person in the business) to survive.
As a business grows, it is easy to lose the open-door policy once adopted by leadership. A them-and-us mindset can grow without it, and it becomes more difficult to maintain open communication and feedback.
Maintaining an open-door policy is essential to preserving a healthy corporate culture. It promotes open communication, feedback and debate. Good channels of communication are important for healthy working relationships. And in addition, these are the basic cornerstone for a healthy culture of the company.
Reciprocate:
As the number of employees increases, it is common for business owners to distance themselves from day to day. When this happens, successes can go unnoticed quickly and workers can begin to feel like a cog in a system. Please take the time to recognize the colleagues’ efforts and good work. Go the extra mile and understand that when workers exceed expectations, they will continue to go the extra mile for you.
What do you do to keep your company culture intact? We would love to hear from you 🙂 Comment below!