If you haven’t yet considered the impact that employee culture has on workplace success, then now is a great time to take a closer look!
The environment and personality of your office constitute company culture, which directly affects how employees will perform. Taking the time to create the right program to understand your culture is well worth the effort because it will tell you how your employees currently feel.
You can use this knowledge to begin crafting a healthy, positive employee culture that will make workers feel better about what they do and boost productivity. Here’s what you need to know about how employee culture can create a powerful competitive advantage!
Every Workplace Has a Culture
Every office and workplace in the world has some form of company culture.
These are the characteristics that define a work environment, like company values and interests, the behaviors that take place, and the unspoken understandings that give a company its personality. Some companies fail to understand this and let their culture take a form of its own. However, successful companies are well aware of their culture and actively work to foster a healthy culture. The culture of your company is how your employees will approach their work, both individually and as a team. Poor culture will lend to lazy and uninspired performance, while a strong culture will build a great foundation for excellence.
Align Culture With Company Values and Strategy
To create a healthy work environment, culture must align with company values and the business strategy it aims to pursue. Put simply, if you want a workforce full of enthusiastic and successful employees, there needs to be a culture that supports this. You can create this by incentivizing and rewarding behavior that aligns with company values. There are two important parts to this; hiring people with the right mindset and consistent behavior.
If you hire someone who is just looking to show up and earn a paycheck, they probably won’t care to put in the extra effort needed to help your company grow. On the other hand, an eager go-getter that wants to move up in the company will put their best effort forth in everything they do.
Simply preaching that your company holds a set of values and beliefs is one thing, but abiding by them is another story. From top to bottom, everyone in your company must do their best to uphold these values. If an entry-level worker can detect that board members and executives have a mantra of “do as I say, not as I do”, then it will be near impossible to convince them to give their best to the company.
Positive Culture Creates a Sustainable Competitive Advantage
One fantastic benefit of a positive culture is that it will create a sustainable competitive advantage.
In the realm of business, competitive advantages are crucial to making your company stand out from others in the same industry. They are why clients (and employees) will choose your company over another. Competitive advantages can be replicated, which means that other companies have the capability of earning advantages that make them more appealing than you.
However, a sustainable competitive advantage is far more potent and is not something that other companies will easily match. Sustainability is the key point here because this is an advantage that will endure over time due to the nature of how you do business.
For company culture, a sustainable competitive advantage is formed when there is a long-standing culture that encourages growth and getting the most from their employees. This will make your workers stay loyal, hard-working, and make them feel proud to be a part of your company.
Healthy Culture Means Higher Morale
With a healthy employee culture, there will naturally be higher morale amongst your workers.
Picture these two office scenarios.
In the first, employees know their boss is likely to yell at them when they make mistakes and does very little to help them succeed. In the second, workers know that their boss is someone they can come to for guidance at any time and that they will do their best to ensure they succeed. Which office will have higher morale? Which office will feel great about showing up to work and giving their best effort. It’s the second office here because there is a positive and encouraging company culture.
Employee morale is incredibly important to the success of a company. Any company with a healthy culture will say that their employees are their biggest asset and this because they know that individual workers are incredibly capable and can do great work to help the business grow. A product or service that a business offers may be what earns them income, but it’s the employees keeping the company alive that can stimulate growth and yield excellent returns.
Productivity Will Soar
When employee culture is positive and employee morale is through the roof, the productivity of a company will naturally soar. The thought process behind companies with high-pressure deadlines and requirements is that this will encourage or force employees to produce at a high level.
While this may be true for a little while, it will cause their employees to feel fear. In time, employees will begin to lose interest in the company and will feel no loyalty towards it. High-pressure employee cultures may be effective for a short while, but they quickly run their employees thin and typically have high turnover rates. There is no real incentive for going above and beyond other than avoiding negative consequences.
On the other hand, a company with a great culture will create an environment that promotes high productivity. When employees feel good about their employer, they love to do well for them and give 110% effort.
Closing Thoughts
Every company has an employee culture, whether it is implied or blatantly obvious. Successful companies dedicate themselves to creating a positive culture that creates an environment workers love to be in. Healthy employee culture will align with a company’s values and business strategy, which will create a long-lasting sustainable competitive advantage. Employees will have extremely good morale and will produce at much higher levels as a result. Positive employee culture takes a long time to form, but it is the key to creating a company that workers are delighted to represent.