Creating A Healthy Culture: Part 1

Last Monday, we touched on the topic of the workplace culture. Specifically, we identified how the company culture will ultimately affect the bottom line, through employee turnover. This week, I want to dive a little deeper into the topic of workplace culture and share some practical tips for how you - a business owner or manager - can start to make positive changes to improve your company's culture.

Whether we like it or not, culture awareness of your workplace, has become a hot topic in the last decade as we see more of the Gen Z (people born in the early 2000's) entering the workforce. Blame it on technological advances, instant access to information, softer parenting, an increase in "emotional intelligence", or global warming...it really doesn't matter. What is now a fact of life, is that your workforce today is filled with people who are keenly aware of your company's culture and expect continual emphasis on its development. Long gone are the days where people just showed up to work to work hard, earn a living, and provide for their family. Now, it's a lot more complicated than that, and it is your job to understand that!

*As a sidenote, I know there are still a few of those "boomers" in your workforce who do not fit that bill...but you get the point. I digress.

Okay, let's talk culture development. Since this is the Monday Minute, and not the Monday Hour, I must break up this topic into multiple posts.

WHAT DOES "HEALTHY" CULTURE REALLY MEAN?

A good starting point to begin to develop a healthy workplace, is to first identify what "healthy" means and to gauge where your company stands in light of that understanding.

Using terminology like "healthy" can be very subjective and open to interpretation. Certainly, not every business will have the same business environment, the same external contributing factors, the same influences, or the same problems. Each business will be unique and the culture will be greatly impacted by many external and internal factors. So, what may be considered "healthy" for one business may not necessarily apply to another. So then, how do we identify what "healthy" generally means and universally apply it to all business models?

The answer is simple: no matter the industry, people are always going to be people. We approach creating a healthy workplace culture from a pyschological perspective. In fact, healthy workplace culture development stems from positive psychology, which is an evidence-based branch of pyschology that focuses on understanding how people find purpose and meaning in their lives.

No matter the job position, no matter the company, people's behaviors are greatly affected by their general sense of meaning and purpose about their lives. This is why creating a strong set of company values is so important to the development of your business. It goes deeper than slapping a poster on the wall listing some "key words" that insight inspiration. Finding people who's personal values align with the company's values is essential to your sustained growth as a business.

This is the starting point. Understanding that creating a healthy workplace is greater than just highlighting a few buzz words, or hosting an annual appreciation luncheon. It's about understanding people and learning how to make them feel like they have meaning and purpose. The great John Maxwell said, "Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand."

KEY INDICATORS OF A HEALTHY CULTURE

So, as we wrap today's Monday Minute (and a half) up, I want to list a few key indicators of a healthy culture - I will dive deeper into these in the coming weeks.

Strong and clear leadership.
Clear, open, and effective communication.
A strong sense of teamwork and collaboration.
A well-established feedback system that allows employees to express themselves.
Strong loyalty and trust from employees.
Opportunities for growth and advancement.
Majority buy-in to company vision.
Generally, happy and productive employees.

In the coming weeks, we will explore these key indicators more and talk about how you can begin to implement positive changes to your workplace to improve your company's culture! Until next Monday!

All the best,