2021 is the year to rethink your company culture. The pandemic has efficiently put society on reset, and your company values are likely to need updating, especially if you’ve been around for longer than a decade. Unfortunately, there’s no detailed guideline on how you can revamp your company culture to fit the times. After all, no two organizations are the same, and one method that works for a similar company might not work so well on yours. There’s no shortcut to this, and a trial-and-error phase is likely your best option. That said, there are general steps you can take to make sure that your efforts don’t go to waste.
Effective and up-to-date company culture is founded on similar things. Maximize the following ideas and slowly find ways to customize them for your team.
Build on Transparency
Now more than ever, your employees are looking for leaders they can trust. Numerous businesses have shut down in the course of one year, and knowing that they can rely fully on your company’s management can give them the sense of security they seek.
Creating a culture of transparency is the first step to getting their trust. You can begin by improving the communication in your leadership teams and across departments so that everyone is in the loop. Of course, you also have to be careful about what information you disseminate and how. Having a guideline to refer to can make it easier to handle this task responsibly. Included in this must be the protocol for sending company-wide emails and making sure that everyone has duly read them.
Reinforce this with an open-door policy to make your leadership team more accessible to the rest of the company. Now is the best time for your leaders to step up and invest in meaningful relationships with the people under them.
Assess Employee Engagement
Just as companies invest in measuring their sales and finances, so must they invest in measuring their employee engagement. If you’ve done this before, you must do it again since the overall corporate scene has been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
Now is also a good time to attune to the conflicts and difficulties that have arisen in your organization due to layoffs, shifting work schedules, and unstable economic landscapes. When you have strategies to nip the problem at the bud and guarantee that all your employees feel heard, you can create avenues to improve your talent retention and performance.
To get accurate results that you can build on, consider hiring a third party. Professionals in this field can give you customized solutions and improve your employee engagement scores. This is a cost-effective means to see immediate changes in your employee satisfaction and, consequently, their overall productivity.
Endorse Flexibility
Everybody knows it’s possible. The world was forced to transition to remote work setups overnight, and the trend is persisting even with vaccines at hand. While remote work is not completely ideal for every company, there are numerous ways to incorporate flexibility into your employees’ work life.
If not through remote work, it could be flexible working schedules to accommodate the changing health protocols in their area of residence. You could also consider allowing them to report on-site three days a week and work from home for the remaining two. This gives them the confidence that your company will give them the leeway they need to care for their personal needs without sacrificing their professional careers.
Make Time for Celebration
Your team needs you to initiate the celebration of certain wins. It’s important that they feel recognized for their efforts and the milestones they contributed to. Moreover, it also encourages them to develop an owner’s mentality. When they cultivate a sense of ownership for the company, they’ll be more motivated to work hard and consider the company’s victories as their own.
It doesn’t have to be grand, but it does have to be timely and inclusive. If you want to be sure that they’d enjoy it, include them in the planning. This is a simple but foolproof way to let them own their moment and make them feel appreciated.
Pay Attention
Ultimately, developing your company culture today depends on your ability to pay attention and take hold of opportunities as they arise. The more you invest in this endeavor, the more you’ll be able to make improvements that will give your company the boost it needs to be successful amidst a global pandemic.