Building a Corporate Culture From the Ground Up

The Importance of Having a Strong Workplace Culture

There’s no such thing as a perfect organization simply because being perfect is overrated. Instead of aiming to achieve perfection, make it your mission to create an organization with a strong corporate culture that aims to provide equal opportunities to its employees and help them grow as individuals.

What is a Corporate Culture?

In a nutshell, your company’s culture can be defined as the set of values, principles, and beliefs that guide your organization to prosperity. It can be seen in the way your employees interact with your customers or with one another and in how they represent themselves outside of the office.

Culture is important because it plays a big role when attracting potential talents. This is mainly because people want to know early on if they will fit in with the environment and grow as professionals, or if the culture will hinder them from blossoming to their full potential. That’s why you need to have a strong corporate culture.

How can a Strong Culture be Built?

The company culture is usually built through time, but it can be hastened by knowing the right approaches and methods. However, you must understand that you’re not creating your culture out of thin air because it’s already existing within your organization. You just have to improve and develop your existing company culture by introducing changes to your environment.

Here are four ways you can do just that:

1. Establish Mutual Respect Among Employees

Respect begets respect. You can’t expect to create a harmonious workplace environment if the members within the company don’t respect one another enough to listen and communicate properly. By showing that you respect your employees despite your hierarchy, it can urge them to follow suit.

Neo Kian Hong did exactly this when he began his post as the chief executive officer (CEO) of SMRT, Singapore’s leading public transport provider. He needed to understand his employees and what they were doing, so he immersed himself in their day-to-day routines and took a more hands-on approach to his leadership.

He started getting feedback from his employees by listening to what they have to say because he believes that the only way to understand their point of view is to put himself in their shoes. By doing so, it allowed him to see what his employees were experiencing and develop solutions for their problems.

2. Set Clear and Feasible Goals for the Company

Goal-setting is important for any organization, but even more so when you’re trying to create a strong corporate culture. This is because goals can help motivate your employees and keep them on the right track. By setting clear and feasible goals, all the members will know that you’re working towards something bigger than everyone combined.

To make it easier, you can create different goals for every team, department, and company as a whole. This means making both short and long-term goals that will help the employees maintain their sense of professional purpose while still celebrating individual wins. Plus, it’s better to establish open lines of communication when reaching the goals because it provides another source of motivation.

3. Promote Inclusivity Inside the Workplace

In the 21st century, it’s all about promoting diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. You need to welcome every person’s individual preferences and differences because it can create more depth for your corporate culture. Additionally, it can make your employees feel like they belong because they’re accepted.

Advocating for inclusivity also means creating an environment that does not discriminate against individual differences. Your employees need to know that they’re safe from harm inside the workplace, so provide them with avenues to voice out their concerns and raise issues without fear of retribution.

4. Create Opportunities for Social Interactions

Lastly, no corporate culture is complete without including opportunities to interact outside the boundaries of work. Social interactions and outings are important in honing meaningful working relationships between employees and their direct supervisors. Plus, it’s great for teamwork and collaboration.

So, make it a point to initiate events that will allow you and your colleagues to bond outside of the office. It could be as simple as planning karaoke nights on Fridays or eating together during lunch. But it could also be a bigger event, such as holding team-building activities in an obstacle course or retreats.

The most important factor in building a strong corporate culture from the ground up is that you don’t force it to happen. Instead of restricting your employees to grow because of your stringent rules, allow them to make a smooth transition into the new workplace culture by implementing the changes gradually. Give the changes some time to simmer and seep into every crevice of your organization.