As we finally start to regroup after a challenging few years, many leaders’ attention is now moving towards creating a team culture that works for employees, the company and its shareholders where virtual working is fast becoming the norm for many organisations.
Positive work cultures are recognised to improve employee engagement, increase productivity, and deliver higher profit margins.
It is not surprising when you review many data points about the value culture brings to any business and its staff.
Your employees will grow and develop in a supportive environment with a robust culture. Ineffective cultures cause conflict, lack results and turnover, and do not attract talented individuals.
Jobvite is a respected talent acquisition suite. One of their recent reports shared data on the impact of culture on employees and those new hires your organisation wants to attract in a talent-short market.
- 46% of job seekers cite company culture as especially important when applying to a company.
- 47% of active job seekers cite company culture as their driving reason for looking for work.
With employee engagement at an all-time low, and more employees asking for flexibility, the culture conversation is more important than ever.
According to PwC pre-Coronavirus, 67% of employees worked less than one day a week remotely; now, 72% have registered an interest in working more than three days away from the office.
Leading on from this, 36% of executives say the loss of corporate culture is the biggest challenge to hybrid work.
The truth is no matter what your organisation decides, your culture will need an update for your changing and increasingly virtual workforce.
Here are several areas that might need a refresh.
Revamp Your Vision, Mission and Values
If you have not revamped your vision and values post the pandemic, it is time. Online working groups can input into the conversation to reflect your values across the entire workforce.
These can then be rolled out virtually across your teams and referred to in everything you do, from performance objectives and behaviours to how new hires are onboarded into your organisation.
Build Trust
When the pandemic hit, many managers were forced into a situation where they had to trust their teams, who were no longer sitting next to them in the office.
It worked.
Some teams had their most productive year ever.
What did you do that was different; what mindset did you bring to the situation that supported you in building trust with your team?
I suspect consistent communication happened. Maybe more time building rapport and relationships.
Showing how much you value and appreciate your team is an easy way to build trust, and you don’t even need to be in the same room.
Random ‘praise’ or connection moments don’t happen in the same way virtually, so diarise when they will happen and make time.
Trust takes time to build. But once you show employees you trust them, and they can trust you, you will be well on your way to strengthening your culture.
Create Your Communication Channels
Though some of us may have felt exhausted by the dreaded Zoom quiz with family and friends during 2020, the process demonstrated how much we crave connection and conversation with our fellow human beings.
The same thing happened on Social Media, with everyone spending more time on channels than ever before.
Don’t believe communication is crucial? One in five remote workers says communication and collaboration is their biggest struggle. And it becomes even more of a battle when you don’t prioritise communication at work.
Culture building conversations might not happen at the water cooler or coffee machine in the same way. However, as technology saved us in 2020, it remains our friend this year. With software like Slack and Zoom, MSTeams, it is still possible to cultivate your culture with those ad hoc conversations.
The more communication avenues you give to your team, the better your communication will become.
In addition to giving your team the tools, they need to succeed and collaborate, set communication expectations and objectives. Depending on the nature of your work, these could be daily or weekly meetings.
One team I work with has a Monday morning ‘huddle’ where people share their priorities for the week and ask for any help they might need. During the week, the Slack channel is buzzing with updates and connections, and then on Thursday afternoon, the team social occurs with a chat about the week and their weekend.
Their manager revealed to me last week that engagement and productivity have continued to improve since they implemented these ideas.
Random ‘praise’ or ‘connection’ moments don’t happen in the same way virtually, so diarise when they will happen and make time every day to speak to your team members.
If you want help and advice around developing your team culture, do get in touch as we have developed several programmes that can help. From Insights Discovery team development, Strengthsfinder to Liberating Leadership. Please send me an email here or call us on 0845 548 0833.
Until next time,
Julia Carter
How Can We Help Improve Your Team Culture?
Our range of leadership and team development programmes focuses on supporting you to change your culture and team performance.
Managers and their teams will improve vital communication, collaboration and influencing skills over six months – developing all participants into high performing virtual team members. Click here for a full programme description or call one of our team on 0845 548 0833.
About Zestfor
Zestfor specialises in developing leadership Training programmes and resources scientifically tailored for technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, IT, and Life Sciences.
Our blend of in-classroom, online, and virtual live-stream delivery methods will engage and assure even the most introverted team members from the first meeting – whether face-to-face or virtually. So, to have a brief chat, call us on 0845 548 0833.
