Setting a Great Example of Workplace Culture
In order to have a great culture, you need a great example of workplace culture. The culture in your company can make or break your success. When there’s a great culture, team members are more passionate and driven to do their part in helping the team succeed. However, a poor culture can lead to tension, stress, and burnout throughout your team.
Every team’s culture is unique and can be hard to explain in words. However, having an example of workplace culture to compare yours to is still a good place to start.
What Makes a Great Example of Workplace Culture?
If you want to find a great example of workplace culture to look at for inspiration, you need to look for certain elements to be there. While culture is a wide topic that can have very diverse examples, there are still some areas of common ground you’ll find in successful cultures.
If you want a great example of workplace culture, look for these three things:
- Autonomy: In great workplace cultures, you’ll find that the team members are able to work independently throughout the day. There’s no need for micro-managing from management because the employees pride themselves on doing a great job.
- Performance: Great cultures take time to recognize successes in the workplace, driving higher performance throughout the team. You’ll find that great cultures value the quality of work over the quantity, and it shows with high-performing teams.
- Passion: When working in a positive culture, employees are passionate about their position and the impact they get to make on their team. With this passion, they’re able to keep the goals of the company in mind, striving to develop themselves and their peers in the process.
It’s important to note that the way these three elements get incorporated into your culture won’t be the same as in other companies. Every team should have a unique approach to a positive culture based on the people and needs involved.
Consider Employee Engagement
When you have a great workplace culture, you’ll find your employees are much more engaged. In fact, you can look at how engaged your employees are currently to get an idea of how your culture is right now.
It’s crucial to measure the engagement level of your employees if you want to ensure a quality workplace culture. When you’re regularly checking in on engagement, you can find trends and problem areas where the culture may not be as positive as it should be.
Signs That Your Workplace Culture Is Struggling
If you want to better your culture, you have to know the signs that there are issues needing correcting. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.
Let’s look at a few red flags to watch for when it comes to an example of workplace culture truly struggling.
Lack of Patience
Seeing team members lose their patience quickly is a sure sign there are some problem areas in your culture. This patience issue can be in management all the way down to entry-level employees. When patience is gone, employees will make rash decisions without considering the potential outcomes.
Less patience also means employees begin losing sight of the end goal your team has. This can cause a drastic change in focus to one that is short-sighted. When people can’t see past the issue at hand and on to the larger picture, they’re more likely to give up on the team.
This is why it’s crucial to keep a positive culture that allows your team to see the good in what you’re working towards. This can help employees’ patience stick around in the harder periods of work.
Less Empathy
Empathy is a crucial trait for all workers. In fact, many companies consider empathy one of their core values. When the culture in your workplace is struggling, you’ll find that there’s much less empathy in your team.
With less empathy, you’ll find your team is quick to blame one another for issues at hand, and they’ll start looking out for only themselves. Kindness will be hard to come by, and the relationships that exist between team members will become strained.
Empathy is a crucial part of teamwork. When your team can’t feel compassion for one another, the culture will become toxic very quickly. If you’re noticing less willingness to understand where another person is coming from, take that as a sign to fix your culture quickly!
Issues With Engagement
As we stated above, engagement is a perfect tool to use to measure how the culture in your workplace is doing. Without proper employee engagement, jobs become meaningless. Your employees will feel like no one is listening to them and that they’re simply a line of data to their boss.
This lack of engagement will lead to burnout and stress because your employees won’t feel fulfilled in their positions. With these factors, productivity will quickly dwindle as well. From there, it’s a matter of time until you notice a higher attrition rate and faster turnovers in positions. These are all factors you can avoid if you focus on creating a great workplace culture!
Example of Workplace Culture Improvement Questions
The best way to find out how to fix the culture in your workplace is to talk to the people around you. It bears repeating that there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to creating a positive culture. You can look for a good example of workplace culture, but if you copied everything they did, it wouldn’t guarantee success.
Different people crave different things in their workplace. If you’re concerned about the culture in your business, it’s a great time to get feedback from employees. The more people you can talk to, the better understanding you’ll have. It’s also a good idea to ask people that hold various positions to get the most complete view of your culture.
When you talk to employees, it’s crucial to ask the right questions. When you come into the conversation prepared, you’ll find the information you’re looking for much more easily. Let’s explore some targeted questions for you to ask concerning culture.
What Parts of Your Job Do You Enjoy?
When you know what brings your employees joy in their work, you can understand their passions. From here, you can begin to develop an idea of what a positive culture looks like for each individual.
Not only that, but having your employees take time to determine what they most enjoy about their positions can help you work with them on ways to incorporate those elements more. This can lead to further development in the company and nourish a culture of growth!
Which of Our Values Have You Experienced Recently?
When you ask this question, it forces your employees to truly consider what your company’s values are. This will push them to actively look for ways that the values you share are showing up in their daily tasks. Hopefully, they’ll be able to come up with some great examples.
However, if there are values that people consistently aren’t recognizing at work, it could be that you should focus on them more. If you notice that most people aren’t seeing the value of empathy in their daily work lives, it will let you know that empathy should be a primary focus for improving workplace culture.
What Improvements Would You Like to See?
Asking for suggestions is a great way to get a variety of ideas to work with. Not only that, but your employees will feel more valued when they believe you care about their ideas and feedback. When you allow your team to talk about the issues they see in their position, it will cause them to consider actionable solutions as well.
What Motivates You?
Did you know that not every member of your team likes receiving recognition in the same way? When you ask about motivation, it can give you an idea of what incentives best work for certain people.
The key to creating a great culture is finding a variety of ways to motivate and accommodate different people. Since everyone is unique, having unique elements to rewards and motivations can help highlight a positive culture.
How Do You Explain What We Do Here to Others?
Asking this question helps you find out if your team is on the same page about the overall mission of the company. If the answers are all over the place, this can be a sign that there should be a larger priority on highlighting the purpose behind your work.
Your employees won’t give all the same answers, obviously. However, you’re looking for trending themes that they have picked up on which are relevant to the mission your company is working toward. Being on the same page about that mission can help create a more cohesive workplace culture for everyone.
Takeaway
When you look for an example of workplace culture, it’s important to remember that everyone’s team is different. Take the traits that are most important for a healthy culture, and then work them to fit your team’s needs. Focus on engagement, productivity, and empathy to ensure you have the right foundation for a fantastic workplace culture! The eLeaP People Success Platform, which includes a continuous performance management system, provides organizations with powerful options to attract and retain high-caliber team members.