Company culture reflects collective attitudes, beliefs and values that shape how employees feel and behave at workplace. A positive culture uplifts employee motivation, productivity, and retention. Building such a culture systematically takes continuous investment in people and processes. Fostering the right cultural environment is critical for attracting and retaining top talent in today’s competitive market.
Define Shared Values
Get leadership together to articulate guiding principles for desired culture, including openness, collaboration, trust etc. Involve teams across hierarchy to finalize a few core values that resonate the most. Continually emphasize selected authentic values in communications, symbolism, office artefacts and leadership messaging, underscoring the priority to ingrain this over time.
Build Quality Relationships
Bonds between people profoundly impact company culture through information transparency, helpfulness, and positivity. Train managers on forging trustworthy relationships with direct reports through regular constructive feedback both ways. Foster team camaraderie through collaborative projects. Relationship behaviors like respect, recognition, and mentorship manifest cultural values daily.
Encourage Creative Freedom
Innovation springs from stretching boundaries, not enforcing control. Employees should feel psychologically safe experimenting and questioning without fear of failure or judgement. Welcome ideas from all levels. Customize goals for intrinsic motivators of growth and mastery over compliance. Support teams with resources to translate ideas into prototypes meeting real customer needs.
Recognize Right Behaviors
Company values remain superficial until visibly practiced through behaviors demonstrating those standards. Recognize employees publicly for displaying desired cultural actions, like speaking up confidently on ethics issues or resolving conflicts amicably, etc. Consistent linkage between awards and desired culture-aligned behaviors acts as positive reinforcement across teams.
Role Model Culture from Top
The most failsafe way to nurture any culture is leadership that actually shows those expectations consistently. Senior executives regularly displaying vulnerability, collaboration, bias for action and mindfulness reassures teams such behaviors are truly supported, not just politically correct lip service. Employees watch leaders closely, taking behavioral cues top-down.
Make On-boarding Impactful
The initial welcome experience lays powerful first culture impressions on new hires. Ensure thoughtful onboarding processes covering vision, values, traditions, and socialization immerse new employees fruitfully. Assign buddies across levels for camaraderie and advice through onboarding into roles. Set defined ramp-up milestones guiding managers. The first 90 days are pivotal for establishing positive culture perception and a sense of belonging.
Equip Supporting Systems & Policies
Walk the culture talk by backing stated values with infrastructure like idea management portals, open office architecture, flexi-hours, grievance resolution processes etc. Eliminate outdated policies misaligned with desired culture. For instance, embrace remote work, unlimited leave and open social media access signaling progressive trust and flexibility. The experts at ISG recommend integrating essential HR technology for simplified people processes.
Continually Seek Feedback
Relying just on anecdotal observations around culture can miss undercurrents building beneath the surface. Proactively gather insights into team morale, emotional wellbeing, and real employee experience through engagement surveys, exit interviews and focus group discussions. Encourage anonymity and transparency. Address concerns through action plans targeting cultural gaps transparently.
Nurture Sub-Cultures Conscientiously
Unique functional needs lead to departmental sub-cultures within the overall cultural framework. Sales teams tend to be outgoing while research groups are often introspective. Accept and support subcultures aligned to company values avoiding homogeneous imposition. However, watch that silo mentality does not brew misalignment. Bring cross-functional teams together periodically to reinforce integration.
Conclusion
Manifesting desired culture requires perseverance before intrinsic habits set in. But purposeful nurturing through communication, symbolism, processes, and leadership commitment unlocks discretionary effort and passion, distinguishing successful organizations eventually. A strong positive culture acts as a powerful magnet for top talent and a key competitive advantage for companies in the long run.
