July 23, 2015

5 Quick Tips to Boost Your Company Culture

Toby Graham Company Culture, Culture of Compliance

A positive work culture makes it way easier to ensure that compliance is universally adopted and embraced. Check out these quick tips for some ideas to use today.

1. Be direct

When faced with a problem employee it can be tempting to send out a memo to the entire team, rather than risk the awkwardness of singling out the individual. Don’t fall victim to this common communication failure. This tactic demoralizes the entire team, while the individual in question may not even realize their mistake. Instead, be direct and address issues directly with staff members.

2. Cap meeting times

This trick comes from startup culture (as well as the San Francisco 49ers) but it’s one many companies would do well to adopt. Placing a cap on meeting times before they start frees up schedules and improves engagement levels, particularly among millennial employees.

3. Watch out for ‘knowledge traps’

It happens to companies of all sizes—managerial failure, with causes rooted in corporate culture— causes the company to go up in flames. Often knowledge traps—breakdowns in communication preventing knowledge from reaching the decision-makers who need it—are at fault. Fostering a culture of openness, humility, and free-flowing information can help prevent these traps from causing major problems.

4. Treat your employees like your best customers

Your employees are your most important asset. Treat them like it. Without the hard work and dedication of your employees, your company couldn’t exist, so foster an employee experience that attracts and retains great talent throughout every stage of the employee lifecycle.

5. Avoid this employee pet peeve

Once again, a tip that comes down to communication, this time on the part of employees. A lack of clear communication is cited as the biggest pet peeve of leaders, but the good news is, it’s easy to fix. Make your meetings more productive and be responsive to avoid bugging the boss.