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- Company culture is an important aspect to a business
- Having a good culture can provide for happy employees and a successful business
- There are many things you should analyze regarding your own culture to make sure it is up to speed
- The relationships and behaviors among co-workers is important to look at
- The management and leadership team is another thing to review to make sure you have some good leaders on your hands
- Stress can cause a lot of problems at work, examining what employee’s stress levels look like is something that could help the business
- Diversity is extremely important within a company and affects the culture tremendously, you want to make sure you have a diverse group of individuals
There are many steps that you can take to evaluate your company’s culture. Culture is extremely important in maintaining a successful business and also making sure your employees are happy. There are many questions you should ask yourself on whether or not your company has a solid and sustainable culture. Every company has a different culture, each culture with different aspects and items that make it up. It is important for you to analyze that culture so that you fully understand the company itself and are able to make it the best it can be.
Company culture is especially important when hiring someone new. Usually they will be interested in some aspect of your culture and you want to make sure that it is a good fit. If the new hire is struggling trying to fit into the culture, then maybe there are some things you need to re-evaluate in terms of the culture as a whole. Maybe there are certain areas that do need some work and are worth a second look just to make sure you are doing everything you can to make it the best environment for everyone. Obviously, there are things you cannot control, but it is important to look at each important piece and decide what you need to do to advance.
Here are just a few important questions I ask myself at my own place of work to get an assessment of the current company culture.
How Well do the Employees Get Along and Work Together?
This question is important to ask because you have to think about the fact you are with these people for 40 hours a week. Obviously, you are bound to have some conflict, but how well do these people resolve their issues? How well do they work together to get the job done?
There is also the fact that because you are with these people for this amount of time, relationships can happen and soon Suzy across the way from you is your best friend by week 3 of the job. Having relationships and conflict resolution in the office is always a good thing. It boosts morale and makes coming to work more enjoyable. When you have a friend at work that you can take walks around the office with or catch up over lunch with, it can make the day go by a lot faster and make your mood better too. Other behaviors to observe: are people not being very sociable during work? Are people going home during lunch? How about on a Friday afternoon, when not work is being done, are people talking or are they just at their desks? What is the human interaction like within the office? Take note of this throughout the work week.
Is there Any Employee Engagement in the Office?
Employee Engagement is especially important to help your employees stay focused and aligned throughout the workday, because work does get boring and tedious. Having a variety of activities that you plan for your office can benefit both the employer and employee by allowing them to take a break from their desk and participate in some fun. It also helps the employer because after the employee takes a break, they might come back the next day, refreshed and feeling more ready to work than they were the day before.
Activities can be as simple as throwing a pizza party in your office or having a couple hours for games. Anything can really help make the work experience a lot more pleasurable. If this question has caught your attention, try incorporating more things to do in your office and outside of office to make work life more enjoyable.
What is the Management Team like?
Are the managers open and understanding? Do they let you come in their office and ask questions? Do the managers yell at you? Are they very cold and don’t show much emotion? These are all good questions to ask when thinking about your company culture. Every management system is different, each with different people, and different personalities. However; management does play a huge role in job satisfaction.
When you have an awesome boss, it usually gets easier to come to work every day because you know your boss is the best. If you have a horrible boss and they make work painful and frustrating, well then maybe it is time to re-think your job situation. Having an awesome boss is something that we can take for granted because it is not like that everywhere. However; learning the different traits and behaviors that can upset your boss or make them happy is always important.
Management can mean a lot to one person and not a lot to the next. Management could make you want to quit your job, or it could make you want to succeed even more and try to move up. Evaluating management at your company and what is working and what isn’t can be extremely helpful for everyone at the company and the essential goals of the business.
What does the Overall Stress Level look like?
Stress and anxiety are big factors in employee happiness and company culture. If everyone is stressed out all of the time, work may not be completed efficiently a if a person weren’t stressed. Work is not just the only factor to stress; a lot of things in your life can affect your mood and your anxiety levels. However; at the end of the day, work is not the most important thing in the grand scheme of life, at least that is my personal opinion.
Managing your stress levels is vital to a person’s happiness and health. Are your employees stressed out all the time? Are they in bad moods? What do you think is triggering this? The work load? The people? Asking these questions about your employees overall state is good, especially when managing a business. You want happy employees and you want them to give it their all and give you 100%, but sometimes it is hard when the work is overwhelming and no one is helping you. Making sure all of your employees have a balanced work load and communication can help them relieve some of that stress that is not needed.
If there isn’t any stress at all, and people are messing around or going on long breaks and always on their phones, are they getting enough work to do? Are they just working quickly through their load and not giving it their all? Do they seem like they don’t care at all to be there? There are so many questions you should ask yourself about the overall stress level of the people in your office.
What does the Diversity look like Within the Office?
Having a diverse group of people in the office can help people problem solve and come up with different and unique solutions on how to get the task done. When everyone thinks alike or has the same opinion, it gets tedious and repetitive. However; when you have that person who might be different than you are, you learn more about other ways to do things and understand. This also gets rid of biases and allows people to speak their own opinions on things. You are going to have some conflict, because no two people are the same, but you will begin to see things in a different light than say if you were working next to someone who shared the same beliefs.
Diversity can open up to a wide range of topics and ideas through conversations that you may have never thought you would have. So take a look around the office and take a look at the people. Are they the same? Do they share the same beliefs? Are they all the same age, race, ethnicity? Are there more women than men? Are there younger people? Figure out who these people are and the people that are working for you and see how diverse they really are. It is so good to analyze these things, because you never know what Tommy could have said or come up with because Suzy and Bonnie are the only ones that ever speak up. Ask yourself this question, do you have a diverse workplace?
In Conclusion Analyze your Work Culture
There are so many questions and things that you should think about when evaluating your own culture. Asking these questions is good because it not only helps you realize what is working but it helps you analyze different aspects of the company that you may have never thought about before.
Each company has a different culture and not everything is going to run smoothly, but it’s essential for your business and the well-being of your employees, that you take the time to look at it as a whole and see what needs to be addressed. Having a culture that every employee would love to be a part of would be awesome, but in order to get there you have to find ways to improve it and work hard at it to make it the best it can be.