Company culture has never been more important than it is right now. Not only is there a mass resignation occurring, but remote working is here to stay. What this means is that you have the possibility of bringing in top talent and offering them a huge benefit – the ability to work from home. Your employees may decide to move out of the city so that they can enjoy a better quality of life in a larger home elsewhere. They may benefit from an improved work/life balance.
Between need and opportunity, there has never been a better time to revamp your company’s benefits and culture.
Start with Feedback
If you want the best ideas and to really prioritize fixing the most pressing issues affecting your specific business, then you are going to need feedback. This feedback should be completely anonymous, from complaints to suggestions. Why? Complaining about a job to the employer is something that people simply don’t feel comfortable doing. If someone is happy to come and have a face-to-face meeting, then take what they say to heart and work to assess and even integrate their suggestions into your strategy. For the most part, however, including an anonymous system and encouraging all employees to use it to highlight issues with the workplace and how they can make it better are great ways to get workable feedback and advice.
Improve Your HR Department
Every company needs a great HR team, and if you either cannot afford that team or don’t have the scope to properly include an effective one, then outsource. Many big companies outsource their HR needs to entire companies and specialists who can provide a better, more structured approach to your needs, like The HR Dept, which offers consultant services to those in Milton Park and beyond.
Outsourcing your HR services and your employment law needs is about pooling together the best resources for the best price. If your small HR team is understaffed and struggling, offset their work with outsourced services. This offers the best of both worlds, from enterprise-level support to personal support from your in-house team.
Update and Review Your Policies
Anti-harassment policies need to stay up to date and take into account the needs of your specific employees – should they come to you. You want your business to be a safe space for every employee, and, more importantly, you need your employees to be understanding and sensitive to those from different backgrounds.
Updating and reviewing your policies is a great place to start with both goals.
Improve Teamwork and Sensitivity
Training your employees on how to work better together and also to be more sensitive is something that every employer should invest in. When it comes to sensitivity training, try to focus more on simply educating. You want your employees to better understand different cultures, different identities, and different sexualities. This will help both inter-employee relationships, but it will also help improve the quality of service you offer and also your marketing strategies.
Team Bonding
Team building and team bonding are two slightly different strategies. Rather than focus on communication or other essential skills that will help your employees work better together, team bonding brings them together. From hosting potluck lunches to paying for team-building games like an escape room, there are many ways to bring the team together and help them care about one another. The only thing to remember is that you cannot force people to like each other, and you should aim to avoid after-work activities. If you do have an after-work event planned, make it entirely optional.
Company Benefits
Company benefits are one of the oldest and yet most effective ways of improving the company culture and how much your employees like working for you. With how varied everyone’s life is, however, you may find that offering fewer benefits overall can actually work. The tradeoff is simple: let your employees choose. That way, instead of having a perk that they don’t want, they can instead choose the best perks to help them with their own work/life balance.
Reward Based on Individual Performance
Recognition is so important, but pitting your employees against each other is terrible for morale and for getting the most out of every employee. You don’t want your employees to compete against each other; you want them to compete against themselves. This way, you can encourage every employee to work harder, train more, or reward them for their long years of service on an individual level.