Roman Semiokhin is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist with experience of a range of different industries, including education, gaming, real estate and tech. This article will look at company culture and the steps businesses can take to create healthy, diverse and inclusive working environments.
For today’s business leaders, building a great company culture is crucial. Workplace culture is a business’s shared values and goals, including procedures, policies and decision-making within the company, as well as how employees work together. An integral component of a company’s culture is its mission statement, which sets out the core purpose of the business and what its values and goals are. In addition, the mission statement also identifies the steps necessary to enable the company to achieve these goals.
When it comes to fulfilling the expectations of their employers, most employees want to excel. To facilitate this, business owners and managers need to ensure that employees understand the full scope of their duties. In addition, employees must also be made aware of the consequences of failing to meet the expectations of their employer.
Organisational culture includes the values and principles that determine how employees and managers perform their work for the company and has a strong impact on employee engagement and satisfaction in their work. In the workplace, the relationship between employees and their supervisor is of critical importance. According to a McKinsey employee job satisfactory survey, 75% of respondents agreed that their boss was the most stressful aspect of their job, with the poll revealing a strong correlation between a poor relationship with the boss and low job satisfaction.
A hostile working environment not only takes a significant toll on employee morale and productivity but can even culminate in legal problems and bad publicity for the company. A toxic company culture is pernicious and difficult to identify but can profoundly affect the success of any business. For example, a company could invest millions on robust employee engagement strategies, but if its company culture is toxic, this investment will be in vain.
Red flags of a toxic organisational culture include:
- High staff turnover
- Employees feeling anxious, stressed or burnt out
- Lack of communication and trust between employees and management
- Poor work-life balance
- Employees feeling undervalued or underappreciated.
- A negative or competitive atmosphere
To build a great company culture, business leaders need to decide what their ideal company culture looks like. First and foremost, employees need to know why the company exists and what differentiates it from the competition. They will also want to understand the company’s values, as many people have a hard time working for an employer whose values do not align with their own. For example, a candidate who cares deeply about corporate social responsibility and environmental issues is likely to struggle working for an employer who does not make sustainability a priority.
Having identified what their ideal company culture looks like, business leaders must compare it against the existing culture in their organisation. Company culture begins to develop as soon as an enterprise starts to scale, as this is when team member interaction increases, with more decisions requiring collaboration. When a company is in the start-up phase, the owner has a huge amount of influence over its culture, with team members relying on their vision for the company. As more employees join the company, the corporate culture continues to develop and evolve, with each new employee bringing to the table their own unique experiences and values that are integrated into the culture of the organisation.
The benefits of a strong company culture include:
- Employees feeling comfortable enough to ask questions or relate concerns to managers
- Employees and managers sharing similar goals and agreeing on a plan of action to achieve them
- The business being a more attractive prospect to top-notch candidates
Business leaders must keep in mind that employees have their own opinions about corporate culture. Rather than trying to impose drastic changes on staff that could impact employee morale and potentially turnover, leaders should adopt a softly-softly approach. A good place to start is asking employees for their input on company culture via anonymous surveys. Workers are likely to be more candid about their likes and dislikes of the current work environment if they are encouraged to express themselves freely. When analysing the results, business leaders should look out for recuring patterns in the responses, as if several employees highlight the same problem this suggests an area of legitimate concern.
Building a positive company culture need not entail business leaders completely scrapping everything the business already stands for. Rather than attempting to implement an instant transformation, employers should instead focus on enhancing the company’s current culture. Employers should ask employees what they like and dislike about the current work environment, using these suggestions to create a more positive company culture that is appropriate for the workforce.
For more information about this topic, visit Roman Semiokhin’s website: https://romansemiokhin.com
