Company culture allows an organisation to live, breathe and grow. It directly impacts everything from innovation and collaboration to employee satisfaction and retention. But your culture is like a garden; it must be carefully maintained to thrive.
Culture starts at a team level
The adage “people don’t leave their job, they leave their manager” could be more accurately replaced by “people don’t leave their jobs, they leave their teams” as shown by new research from Wotter.
Our data analysis of leavers found that, rather than leaving due to clashes with their manager, it was more commonly issues with the broader team culture that pushed employees to quit.
Understanding the relationship between your team members on a continuous basis allows you to focus on the pockets of your company that could be detracting from the overall culture.
Enriching culture means including cultures
To nurture your company culture, make sure you’ve got a wide range of voices who all feel comfortable speaking. Paying close attention to equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) is vital.
Actively promoting diversity in recruiting and advancement opportunities leads to a broader range of perspectives. This gets teams out of narrow mindsets and exposes them to more innovative ideas. Meanwhile, emphasising inclusion ensures all team members feel welcome to contribute their unique views without fear of judgment.
When you get ED&I right, collaboration happens naturally and you spur creativity.
Plus, people from different backgrounds will have different ideas about your culture itself – and you need this guidance if you want to create a company all kinds of talented people will want to work at.
Are your values really felt?
Are your company values visible without the words on the wall?
Values must be so ingrained that they are obvious to all employees, regardless of tenure. They should be consistent enough to immediately permeate new hires when they join – otherwise, your organisation will be at risk of bad culture contamination.
Measure how aligned your teams are with your company values. Without a read on whether your people are really on board with your values, you could be trying to push something that’s just not working. Understanding what’s not gelling with employees can help you clean up any misunderstandings of your values and get everyone on the same page.
Reinforcing your values will keep employees intrinsically motivated, collaborative and loyal to your organisation.
Ultimately, by nurturing culture through a focus on teams, diversity, and living values, you can unlock higher performance in your organisation – and help your employees to feel more fulfilled. Culture enrichment is an ongoing journey, but one well worth the investment.
