HR Secrets Unlocked: How to create & maintain a healthy culture!

Your internal company culture is your work environment, expectations of your employees/peers, values; which also defines how people interact and work together. Your company culture gives your company an identity, which makes it distinct from other organizations.

Long gone are the days where a job is just that… a job. Employees want to be engaged, they want careers, they want to enjoy coming to work, they want flexibility and more importantly, they want to be valued. Creating a strong work culture that is embedded in your work environment is how you hire top talent and retain top talent. As employers, we are in the business of people, failure to realize this will keep your turnover high and reduce the opportunity for success.

Here are a few tips to get you started when you are building a strong healthy work culture, cultivate employee appreciate and foster an environment supportive of employee engagement.

1. Support Positive Employee Engagement – In order to encourage employee engagement, you must provide the tools that allow and incentivize positive employee interactions. For example, Assembly is a peer to peer employee recognition that cultivates positive interactions between co-workers. Allowing them to support each other’s accomplishments and build positive relationships. Employees who feel appreciated will always do more than expected, which can indirectly contribute to the company’s bottom line.
2. Consistency and Management Advocates – Managers must practice what the companies preach, they must see the value in rewarding the staff, retaining good employees, and enforcing consistent principles. This concept requires listening to your management team’s concerns and questions and implementing their ideas when the opportunity presents itself. Making policies and incentive programs that include them, instead of ones that inconvenience them.
3. Recruitment – As HR professionals we must know what kind of employees thrive in the organization. Are you a small group that believes in collectivism or do you need individual contributions that can work independently? Create recruitment profiles for each role to ensure not only is the person qualified for the role but will not damage your culture upon arrival.
4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate – In order to effectively communicate, there needs to be honesty, constructive feedback, and transparency. This can be a combination of organized staff meetings, company events, employee reviews, open-door policies, etc. Either way, you want to create an environment where it is ok to be honest and provide constructive feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

Improving your company culture is not a process that will happen overnight. One step is to put goals in place for each year that support your initiative and really commit to your plan of action. Be flexible, some ideas will work well, and some will not. Remember to utilize resources that are available to you that provide a tangible return on your investment.

Assembly offers resources available to you, that allow you to test out ideas with a free membership! With a little creativity and innovation, you will notice a difference in your culture right away.

About the Author, Nicole Miles

Nicole Miles has over 15 years of experience in Human Resources specifically with small to mid-size companies specializing in establishing company cultures, mentoring/ coaching managers, and assisting organizations with building a bridge to better communication/engagement. She believes that a successful business has great people at the very hear of it. She has attended Cornell University Human Resources Strategic Leadership Course and Marketing Strategy Certificate Course; she also works as an HR and Marketing Director in the Oil and Gas Industry with both experience in International Human Resources and Multi-State Employment Law.