Have you seen a company where the staff are allowed to play snookers or any indoor games while at office or take a good sleep when they need it?
Isn’t it wonderful to work where you are given flexibility for timing and place of work?
Well, it may seem impossible but it’s not so. There are many organization in the global market where we can see that the management looks into ways of retaining the talented and creative team members with them.
So what are they focusing on? Of course, the work culture!!
The work culture tells about how people work, interact and communicate with each other. The organizations come up with ways of making improvements in the work culture.
Let’s have a look at how to improve work culture in the organization.
Best Ways to Improve Work Culture in Office:
1. Simple gestures:
Like in school, using simple courtesy words like “Good morning”, “Thank you”, “Please” “Can you” make a lot of change in the work place.
Practicing them regularly is a sign of gaining respect and improve the general exchange of knowledge. But make the practice of saying it face to face. It’s a sign of increasing face value.
2. Encourage ownership in work:
Don’t check out every hour on the people who work under you. This is not a sign of good leadership. It will create resentment and work cannot be executed in time.
By giving them ownership of their work, they will feel motivated and take responsibility for the work they are involved in. It’s wise to encourage ownership at all levels within organization.
3. Congratulate and publicly appreciate:
A small sales achievement or production target that got exceeded this month or nil customer complaints that month are some of the achievements that may seem negligible to a Senior Manager.
Just see the change it will bring once the manager calls for a small gathering and congratulate the team behind the sales or production or quality control.
The applause is the real motivation for the team and for the other teams who need to be motivated. Give a sincere appreciation and the effects are enormous.
4. Rewarding schemes:
Like said before having a way to show appreciation is always a good sign of improving the culture of work place.
Some companies give out in the form of small cash gifts or material gifts or appreciation letter. The morale of the people working inside the organization boosts up.
5. Decision making:
Have you seen any work place where the decision for a project is being done with all the members’ inputs?
You would have seen that in some families all the members are involved in decision making. The same when practiced in an office work place will have good outputs.
Don’t wait, get your team to be part of decision making process!
6. New staff rewards:
A new staff can get demotivated easily. To give them motivation, the manager or supervisor can make announcement of small benefits for their achievements. Try out and see the results!!
7. Staff training:
The manager or supervisor who observes how the execution of work is being done in detail will be able to identify the training needs of their staff.
Sometimes, the staff can be advised to file their own training needs. This way it would allow the gaps to be filled in the work place.
8. Access to internet:
Most of the work place or job profiles involves the use of personal computers and/or desktops.
Giving access to internet is a sign that the organization has trust on the employees who work for them. This trust would be kept intact through the work executions.
9. Flexible time:
There is a trend in timings for some employees at some workplaces depending on the type of work. The project timing and deadlines are provided to them wherein they do their work at their own time.
This sort of flexible timing make employees productive and is one way of retaining some talents in the organization. This culture is adopted in many global organization to cater to the international need.
10. Work from home:
Sometimes, an employee’s main work involves making presentations and also organizing seminars for other communities , then the organization would feel that the employee could work from home and even use the video conference facility to organize the seminar.
This could be done at the home itself. The organization relies on the reports from other team and the trust they have on the employee.
11. Share a moment:
By going around the table and sharing a few moments with the team is a sign of maintaining long term benefits.
A Supervisor should move around the work place of his team and share a few minutes with them to show support to their work.
12. Listen to co-workers:
Being able to lend an ear to the queries of your co-workers and help them to solve issues is one important work place culture to be adopted or cultivated. Without a team it’s impossible to complete any work assignment.
Hence, it’s advisable to nurture a culture for listening to peers and subordinates. By doing so you would be able to see wonders at work place.
13. Empowering:
Don’t be a supervisor who wants to sign each every paper that comes out of the shop floor or a manager who would get involved in all the activities of the day.
Allow the people working under you to get certain power or authority to do their work. It will give more confidence and boost the morale. Empowerment is the greatest tool in a well balance work culture.
14. Open door policy:
You would have seen sometimes when some manager is sitting inside a room and the mechanic outside would be so hesitant to go inside for getting his leave approval. This hierarchy is not very comfortable to work with.
Open your doors to people who work under you and make them comfortable to approach you. By making oneself approachable, the disparity and differences diminish.
It allows free flow of ideas, knowledge and sharing views which is essential for the betterment of organization.
15. Being transparent:
Developing an attitude for being transparent is good sign of allowing future communications flow through.
Transparency only builds trust and loyalty which is what all organizations are after. Hence, a manager needs to display transparency in his dealings.
Conclusion:
So now that you would have reviewed the above points, you would be in position to identify the importance of improving the work place culture. Paying high salaries and benefits are not the only way of retaining employees.
Being more supportive and understanding to the employees is also a required characteristic for a successful organization. The culture in every organization brings out the power and energy of the people working in it.
This culture build up is an important criteria for organizations to get the trust of people working for them. It not only creates a positive environment but also improves productivity, efficiency and creativity.
