A business culture is built on its values and beliefs and gives a clear signal of your business identity to your customers and employees – creating one will not happen overnight and tends to come straight from the top.
The background
Setting up a working culture involves participation from each and every employee in your business, generating passion for your business. Set out a plan outlining what business culture you want to achieve in the long-term – and this needs to be monitored on a regular basis.
The process
Establish goals – not only for the company but for each employee too so everyone understands what they have to achieve and how this will contribute to the business as a whole. Promote these around the office so that your staff keep them in mind on a regular basis. If goals are achieved, reward your staff – either individually or as a team – this will encourage them to carry on contributing to the working culture.
Need to know
It’s not easy to envision a business culture so assess which companies you admire or aspire to and ask yourself what sets them apart from the rest? It could be their customer base, their values, their low employee turnover – see if you can apply these values to your company and incorporate them into the business culture.
Top tips
The more meaning you can attach to your business, the more your staff will be aware of and committed to your business’ aims and the easier it is to establish a work culture. Consider schemes that reward behaviour you are keen to encourage. If it’s a culture where compassion and putting others first is key, develop a policy that all staff can contribute to, such as donating money to charity, enabling staff to give up one day of work a year for volunteer work or helping out the local community. If aggression and self-motivated employees are what you require more of, introduce competition among staff, create teams and recognise goal-hitting.
