Disengaged employees cost companies between $450 and $550 billion a year. Whether the reason is workplace stress, burnout, or toxic company culture, turnover rates are higher than ever.
A strong company culture will keep your employees happy and productive. This includes employee appreciation and workplace flexibility.
To help you out, we prepared a helpful guide on defining, refining, and improving your company values. Read on to learn how to communicate them clearly to your employees and team members.
What Are Company Values?
Company values are the core values of your business or corporation. They set the tone for the work environment, work processes, business goals, and guiding principles. In other words, company values are a sort of a mission statement for your company that includes all employees.
For some companies, their core value is sales. For others, they’re focused on client satisfaction, and yet others focus on employee satisfaction.
Company culture is an important and deciding factor for job applicants. Even the best salary is not enough if a job candidate doesn’t fit into the company culture.
Brainstorm Ideas With Team Members and Employees
One of the best ways to boost workplace morale and have engaged employees is to brainstorm ideas with them. Aside from talking about company-related matters, you should also gather feedback on company values and culture. This way, you can see where it needs improving.
Your employees know what type of workplace is best for their productivity, so make sure you listen to their feedback. The more information you have, the easier it’ll be for you to create an inclusive, positive, and productive company culture.
Clearly Communicate Your Core Values to Your Employees
You can have the best company culture on paper, but your employees need to know about it. Don’t just give them a pamphlet expecting them to understand everything themselves. Show them what your company is about and how your values fit into the workplace on a daily basis.
When hiring new people, make sure to communicate your company’s core values clearly from the beginning. This way, you can eliminate candidates who are not a good fit. Also, everyone will know what to expect if you decide to hire them.
Create an Employee Recognition Program
Recognizing your employees publicly as well as privately is great for motivation. You can take it a step further and create an employee recognition and reward program. You can use special employee reward software or make an internal plan to follow.
For instance, you can create a personalized system that’ll reward employees based on specific actions, results, behaviors, or accomplishments. The rewards can be anything from gift cards to extra days off. Make sure to get to know your employees so you can offer more personalized rewards for everyone.
Sign Up for Group Company-Wide Classes
Team-building activities that are both fun and educational can do wonders for teamwork and productivity. You can sign up for group company-wide classes such as lean portfolio management. This will help educate employees but also do something together for the greater good of the company.
When scheduling team-building activities, avoid weekends so employees can take a break from work. Set aside a day during the workweek for these things and leave the weekends free so nobody feels obligated to cancel personal plans.
Find Creative Ways To Boost Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is a tricky metric but luckily, you can do a lot to improve it on an individual and company-wide level. The key to a successful collaborative culture in a company is in finding creative ways to boost engagement.
For example, salaries and benefits are not enough to motivate an employee. Job satisfaction, a positive company culture, and recognition are what keeps employees engaged.
Some of the most effective ways to improve employee engagement include:
- A fun onboarding experience (for new hires)
- Allocating wellness and fun days
- Being a mentor instead of a boss
- Celebrating people and their life events
- Talk to employees about their career path and growth
- Recognize employees publicly and privately
- Give employees flexibility in terms of work hours and locations
When employees feel appreciated and cherished for their work, they’ll be more productive, more engaged, and do a better job overall.
Be Transparent About Company Matters
No matter the size of your company, transparency and openness about company matters can help you build trust with your employees. People want to feel like an important part of your company, not just another hire who can be easily replaced.
Sharing important company information with your employees can boost productivity. This includes informing employees about management changes, new departments, diversity, and salary transparency.
Offer a Flexible Work Culture
With more and more companies becoming remote-first, work-life balance is becoming blurred. Even though working from home means no commute, many companies expect employees to reply to emails even after work hours. This can lead to frustrated, stressed, and burned-out employees with decreased productivity.
To avoid this, pay attention to the flexibility your company offers. For example, you can offer flexible work hours, vacation days, breaks, and fewer meetings. The key to flexibility is trust. If you hire quality workers, you should trust them to do their job without you micromanaging them. In fact, the more freedom you give them, the better engagement you’ll see and the more productive they’ll be.
Creating a Positive Business Culture Is a Result of Flexibility and Strong Values
Whether you own a brand new business or an established corporation, company values have a big impact on employee productivity and motivation.
For example, giving employees the flexibility to make their own schedules shows them you trust them to do a good job without being micromanaged.
Another example is communicating your company values clearly from the get-go. These are just some of the many reasons why company culture is key to employee and business success.
To discover more business and company growth tips, explore some of the other articles we’ve written on these topics. Come back often for more of the industry’s latest news and updates.