The Importance of Good Culture in the Workplace

We’ve all experienced waking up after a night of rest only to still feel utterly drained and exhausted.

It sets us off on the wrong foot for the day ahead, significantly decreasing the usual spirit and passion we display at work.

Even a couple of cups of coffee can’t repair the mood we’re in, stopping us from operating productively and ensuring we can’t perform at our best. 

The downfall of employee “off days” in the workplace

As a solitary event, these “off days” are an entirely acceptable occurrence for an employer that can’t be avoided.

Yet, when more and more staff members are losing their motivation to do tasks, struggling to complete their duties, and becoming disengaged with their job, alarm bells should start ringing. 

This suggests that there’s a larger force at play, where your employee wellbeing is at risk. It’s your responsibility to do something about this.

What causes low employee wellbeing?

Truthfully, there are a few factors that can influence an employee’s attitude towards work. These include:

1. The level of stress they are experiencing.

2. Their overall job satisfaction.

3. The amount of support they receive from their employer.

Any of these can cause a fall in performance, meaning it should be your priority to address the issues that are forming. 

How? By investing resources into building a good culture in the workplace.

The importance of good culture in the workplace

When employees are struggling, they’re much more likely to be truthful about their circumstances if they have a team of colleagues and a leader they can trust. 

Rather than feeling ashamed of the rut they’ve found themselves in, they’ll be able to confide in those around them and get the extra support they need.

As a result, they’ll be able to manage their stress levels and make a quick recovery. 

According to Forbes, a good culture in the workplace “promotes teamwork, raises morale, increases efficiency, and enhances staff retention rates”.

How to promote a good culture in the workplace

To start offering the benefits of a strong culture to your employees, you need to facilitate the needs of your team.

Step 1. Increasing communication channels 

When your employees don’t have access to decision-makers in your organisation, it makes it hard to seek the advice and support they might need. Therefore, you need to remove any barriers already in place.

Step 2. Training leaders to listen

Every member of your leadership team needs to be willing to accept constructive feedback from their employees and proactively address issues that arise. They can’t respond negatively when concerns have been raised, as this will only threaten pre-existing relationships and harm wellbeing.

Step 3. Establishing set rules

No matter what position your employees are in, they need to be treated fairly and equally by those around them. To ensure this happens, you might decide to make some guidelines that everyone is expected to respect and follow. 

Step 4. Building a vision statement

When your employees are working towards different goals, conflict can arise. You need to align your organisation by creating a vision statement that everyone supports and wants to achieve. This’ll reduce miscommunications and ensure your staff members are all travelling the same path.

Step 5. Rewarding your employees

When your team is going above and beyond their duties to meet certain targets or make something happen, it’s absolutely imperative that you recognise their hard work. Once you do so, you will be increasing wellbeing around the workplace.

Step 6. Champion diversity 

Retaining a team that consists of people from different backgrounds and cultures will increase creativity and problem-solving significantly. It’ll also reduce the likelihood that individuals are exposed to microaggressions because of who they are.

Step 7. Provide job flexibility

When your employees can have a strong work-life balance, stress levels will be reduced significantly. Rather than feeling burnt out and overworked, they’ll be happy to complete their work and will perform better as a result. This will have a big impact on those around them.

Step 8. Promote internally

When your team can access strong career advancement opportunities, they are going to want to work harder and prove themselves. By participating in training, they can become better at their jobs which is going to make them more satisfied and engaged with the work they do.

Step 9. Design collaborative workspaces

Instead of separating your employees into individual office spaces, you should rearrange your workplace to promote interaction. They’ll be able to form bonds and friendships with each other so that they’ll have a support network in their time of need. They won’t have to deal with problems alone.

Step 10. Offering additional benefits

One of the best things you can do as an employer is to actually give your team the tools to care for their own mental wellbeing. By offering local gym memberships and subsidised counselling, you can promote self-care and, in turn, boost the morale of your employees at work.

Step 11. Hiring cohesively

When you’ve done all this work, you don’t want to introduce new staff members that are going to harm your existing team dynamics. Therefore, you need to be smart with your recruitment and only onboard candidates who are going to contribute towards your culture, not take away from it. OHO can help.

Recruiting through OHO 

We pride ourselves on being the meeting place where exceptional talent can connect with fantastic opportunities.

We’re excited to be driving UK and US innovation. Where there’s a plan, we have the people.

We’re an established and respected consultancy that offers a range of specialist services to a broad spectrum of clients and candidates within the ecommerce, IT, electronic engineering, finance and consultancy sectors.

Find your next big innovator through us.