How to Shape a Great Workplace: 4 Simple Steps

Creating a great place to work is becoming a higher priority for many businesses, with research consistently showing that those top employers outperform their competitors in critical areas like profitability, client satisfaction, investor return, and staff turnover.

Many of the world’s top companies attribute a great part of their success to their workplace culture, such as Google, Facebook, and Apple. However, this isn’t a strategy just for big business: small-medium businesses have even more to gain by creating a great workplace.

With it harder for small-medium businesses to compete on salary and benefits, growing a great workplace will help to attract and retain top talent, with much lower costs than dishing out big on pay cheques and perks.  And it’s definitely a strategy that works well for smaller businesses:  39 of the top 50 ‘Best Places to Work’ in Australia in 2011 were small-medium businesses, with fewer than 200 employees.

While a workplace culture often happens by default rather than by design, a great workplace culture that furthers a business’ strategic objectives needs to be planned and carefully nurtured over time. However, existing workplace cultures can certainly be changed and influenced for the better, with the right strategies.

So how can a business create a great (or even greater) workplace? Here are 4 simple steps that will help you to nurture a great workplace culture to further your business:

How to Create Your Workplace Culture

Step 1 – Identify what kind of workplace you want to create

First things first, your business will need to pinpoint the type of workplace that it wants, and the type of workplace that will help it to achieve its objectives. Consider your current long-term vision and the values you might need to get there. Your business’ core values are essentially a short-hand definition of your workplace culture, guiding how the company should behave internally and externally.  They provide a framework for culture, behaviours, and performance.

After having an initial brainstorm, it’s time to involve your current employees. Consider holding a team workshop to brainstorm your current workplace values and your future values, as well as to create a mission/vision statement if you do not already have on in place. Involving your staff in the formation of your business’ values and mission/vision statement will ensure that they genuinely want to be a part of that future. If workers aren’t included in this stage, it can make it harder to sell your values and mission/vision later on.

Step 2 – Plant the seeds of your culture

Once you’ve identified the type of workplace that you want, it’s time to set up the things that will reinforce your cultural values to every employee, every day. Communication is particularly important, as you don’t want your staff to forget your values before they make a difference.

Use your values as an underlying premise to all internal communication and even as a base for reward/recognition efforts. When it comes to external communication, be proud of your values : place them on your website, in email signatures, or anywhere appropriate that you can think of.

Step 3 – Hire those who fit into your culture

The main reason that hires fail is not a lack of skill: it’s because they have the wrong attitude. According to recent research from Leadership IQ, 46% of hires fail – and 89% of those failures are because of an attitude mismatch. While it’s harder to assess cultural fit than it is to assess technical skills, it’s also the most important criteria for new hires to succeed.

To assess cultural fit, establish an intangible standard for hiring that reflects on your core values. Consider how you can assess those attitudes in the interview process, with techniques like behavioural tests, and a second, more informal cultural-fit interview.

Step 4 – Give your employees ownership of your culture

Now that you’ve set up the blueprint of your culture and put the first stepping-stones into place, it’s time to let go and give your culture to your employees. While senior management should still guide the culture, your staff should do the right thing if you have the right people and processes in place.

To keep culture top-of-mind, consider setting up a ‘culture committee’, where a range of different people from different functions can get together to brainstorm and implement new ideas. Task the committee with creating new ideas that drive your workplace’s values. This will keep your workplace culture fresh, ensuring it’s never forgotten and that your values are lived everyday by your staff.

By taking the time to grow and nurture a great workplace, your business will experience benefits in recruitment and retention, making it far easier to attract and retain top quality staff.

With considerable benefits in terms of financial performance and long-term profitability, building a great workplace makes business sense.

Share these Tips: