3 Ways to Create a Positive Company Culture
By Gracie Johnson
When you first think of public relations, you may immediately think of external relations and how companies engage with their target audiences. But what many don’t realize is the primary internal target audience is the company’s very own employees. The company’s employees are very crucial stakeholders. It is important to keep the employees in the forefront rather than on the backburner. With all that said, it is a great idea to work on your company culture and create a more positive environment. Here are three ways to help engage your employees to enhance your company culture.
- Check up on your employees
It’s a good idea to check up on your team every now and then to gauge the sentiment across the company. This can be a delicate balance — you want to check up without seeming like a “helicopter boss” while also coming across approachable and understanding. There are a few ways you could go about these check ups. You could offer one-on-one short check-up meetings that interested employees could sign up for as desired, or you could periodically send out surveys for employees to complete to gather sentiment in a written format. Whichever you choose — or if you think of a different way that would work best for you and your team — your employees will be thankful for the opportunity to share their thoughts and you will leave with valuable insight you otherwise would not have.
2. Create bonding moments
Though this is a much more difficult task now than Friday night happy hours a couple of years ago, it is still important to put in the work to figure out how to create opportunities for your employees to bond, whether virtually or in a safe, socially-distant manner. Hopefully soon we will be able to return to the Friday happy hours, but until then, make connections with your employees and encourage them to acquaint themselves with each other. These bonding moments will definitely allow your company culture to take a positive turn.
3. Value all opinions across the team
Sometimes it’s easy to only consider the opinions of those in the C-suite or key stakeholders, but it is a great idea to consider the opinions and insights of everyone across the team. Everyone has to start somewhere, and even the new employees or interns may have valuable insight to add. This is especially true if the C-suite is an older crowd — the younger additions may have important information about what is trending and popular with the younger generations and stakeholder groups. Looping these team members into conversations and team meetings will also help to make them feel valued and important, which can help your employees feel as though they are making a difference — another way to improve company culture.
It can be difficult to keep morale high within the company during a worldwide pandemic, and we all can agree and recognize that. However, this pandemic has made it even more imperative to keep the company culture at a high — or as a high as possible, given the circumstances. Utilizing these three methods for improving employee morale will hopefully help your team find strength and positivity despite the challenges to the work environment. Good luck to you and your team!
