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As a business owner, being able to create a positive and productive working culture is paramount. No matter what size your business might be, your employees are likely to be one of your biggest and most valuable assets. Changing a working culture can seem like a daunting task. While it will not happen overnight, creating a more positive and productive working culture can help you to increase employee satisfaction, boost efficiencies and increase your bottom line.
1. Make the Right Hires
When it comes to creating a positive and productive working culture, who you hire is hugely important. In order to ensure you are able to have an engaged, innovative, and satisfied workforce, you need to make the right hire. When you are looking to employ new team members, you should, of course, focus on who has the right experience and passion for the role at hand while also ensuring that you’re sourcing talent from a deep and diverse pool. You should also pay close attention to how an employee will fit in with your existing working culture to ensure the new relationship will benefit both parties.
2. Value Open Communication
Working culture does not just happen. It is a symptom of management styles and internal relationships. Fostering a culture of open communication has been found to benefit businesses in a number of different ways. For example, open communication can enable managers to more easily stay on top of progress and be alerted to issues before the consequences have become too serious. Open communication has also been found to have a big impact on innovation.
Creating a culture of open communication relies on business leaders and managers leading by example. You need to illustrate to staff how much you value this practice to ensure they feel comfortable encouraged to fully communicate.
3. Track Employee Engagement
Employee engagement can be a very difficult metric to keep track of, which is why the majority of businesses have poor levels of internal engagement. The term employee engagement refers to the relationship an employee has with their work and their employing organization.
As inpulse.com explains, keeping track of your rate of employee engagement using survey software can help you to more easily understand key metrics, like task allocation and staff satisfaction rates.
4. Offer feedback
Studies have found that a lack of feedback and appreciation from managers and business leaders is a large motivating factor for people leaving their current jobs. When it comes to creating a more positive working culture, it is important that you understand how to give effective feedback.
When it comes to giving effective feedback, it is important that you pay close attention to the needs and preferences of your team. For some staff members, public praise might be a very effective and valued form of reward, whereas the very thought of it might make another team member cringe. Being thoughtful and aware of the feedback that can be given to staff members, as well as what the individual will most value, is an important part of improving the productivity of your working environment.
