The goal of every company is to thrive. No one goes into business thinking they would like to fail. Sure, many are prepared not to succeed, learn from their mistakes, and try again. Many want to keep their business small. Nevertheless, that underlying dream of success is the same for everyone.

One of the ways to achieve this kind of success is fostering a positive, healthy, solid company culture that promotes growth.

In this post, we’ll look at the different elements of a positive company culture and how you can adopt it in your own business.

What Is Company Culture?

But first, let’s define what company culture actually is.

Company culture is that overarching set of beliefs, values, and behaviors that make an organization what it is. It’s the feel of a company.

When it’s good, the people who work for the company are productive, feel good about their jobs, and want to keep working there. When it’s bad, employee turnover is higher and employees are less efficient, all of which is reflected in the company’s results.

And now for the elements of a good, thriving company culture:

Establish Core Values

The first step you should be taking towards a thriving company culture is to establish a set of values that will define your company.

You can very easily adopt the most popular and prevalent values: honesty, transparency, etc. However, if you truly take the time to consider them, having in mind what you want to achieve as a business and how you want your company to feel, you can arrive at a much more honest set of values you will genuinely believe in.

This will make them easier to enforce, as they will feel natural. You won’t have to think about what to do and how to behave in a certain situation. You will be able to act in a way that is true to yourself.

The key to a company’s core values is the need to not only talk about them but to live by them. If you claim one of the values you believe in is diversity, yet you only employ people of a certain race, age, and gender, with a specific kind of background, your employees will doubt all of your other values as well.

Think about the Ways You Communicate

Communication is another aspect of company culture that you need to invest a lot of time and effort in.

First of all, your goal is to keep communication channels open and to encourage all of your employees to speak their mind without any fear of potential repercussions. You will have achieved this when all levels of management offer zero judgment and truly perfect the art of listening.

There’s nothing more normal than having a disagreement in business. However, learning how to shelve egos, keep an open mind, and let go of the need to always be right is what will truly open up your communication.

Reassurance, feedback, and communication that is built on mutual respect lie at the heart of every positive company culture. It will take you some time to truly perfect it, but all the effort will be worth it in the end.

Adopt a Safety-First Mindset

Workplace safety is a subject that many businesses fail to address until an accident has already happened. Instead of waiting for a prompt, aim to define and enforce all the safety precautions that pertain to your industry and line of work, and always mind best practices.

Workplace safety is about more than just preserving the lives and health of your employees. It truly shows that you care about their wellbeing and that they are more to you than mere bodies that punch in every day. Businesses that feel more like a family and a tight-knit group have a much better chance of success in the long run than those that breed competition and live and die by getting ahead.

You can take the safety-first mindset even further by considering items like ergonomic chairs, healthy snacks, workout classes, and the like. It can be anything that you can provide to your employees that will keep them healthy and happy not just in the office but in life overall.

Define Time off

The hustle culture and hustle mentality have been present for a really long time in many industries. We’ve come to socially accept a lack of sleep, long hours in the office, taking no breaks, and having all of our meals at our desks as something desirable.

Luckily, another belief system and another voice is slowly emerging, one that advocates for rest and time off. This voice is much more beneficial not only for the employee but also for the bottom line of the company in question.

To send a message to your employees that rest is strongly encouraged rather than frowned upon, establish clear boundaries regarding time off. Reward taking the time to rest and come back to work after a good night’s sleep, as opposed to staying at the office all night. Of course, there will be times when all-nighters are necessary – but they should be the exception, not the norm.

Ask your teams not to sync their phones to their work email accounts and project management apps. Enable a clear demarcation line between work and the private lives of your employees, and don’t bother them off the clock unless it’s an emergency.

Don’t send out emails in the evening. Instead, schedule them to be sent out at the appropriate time.

Hire for Fit and Not Just Skills

You often hear that the first hire you make as a business is more important than the 50th or the 100th. And while you certainly want to find someone who will do the job you’re hiring them for well, you also want to make sure they fit into your company culture.

When screening your potential hires, always make sure to check how they would fit in with the people you already have on board. This doesn’t mean you should hire people who are similar, however. Quite the contrary, introducing fresh ideas and views will only enrich your company and help it grow faster.

This is where the core values you’ve defined come into play. The people you choose to work with should be aligned with the same goals and truly believe in working by them.

If you boil your choice of employee down to two people who have the same or approximate skill levels, always go for the one who is a better fit. They can come from a completely different background than all of your other team members, but if they essentially share the same values and interests, you will find they bring more to the table than just their skills and experience.

Get to Know Each Other

We tend to work better with the people we like, so encouraging your employees to get to know each other outside of work is a great way to strengthen the bonds between them.

Simon Sinek puts this really well when he talks about the need to fight a common outside enemy as opposed to fighting an imaginary internal one. He explains how this is achieved by establishing a sense of togetherness that can be found in the military.

What will most likely come to mind is some kind of team-building activity. And while it’s certainly advisable, you need to know how to work without it as well.

Provide the space for your employees to chat. Whether it’s a virtual room or a physical one, allot them a zone where they can talk about non-work topics. You can host a weekly meal or happy hour at the end of the week, for example.

Try not to ask your employees to show up for an activity outside working hours, at least not too often. It can feel like you are encroaching on their private time, and they might still feel obliged to come, which won’t put them in the best mood.

Incentivise Collaboration

There are also ways for your employees to get to know each other within the confines of their jobs. Collaboration often breeds the best solutions and ideas, and it also helps your teams knit together tighter relationships.

A debate often arises about the need to encourage collaboration between people who are not alike and who normally don’t work together. It can be a fun experience, but you are more likely to achieve better results if you allow employees to work with the people they actually like.

Allow these relationships to develop naturally, and don’t try to shift them around just because you’ve envisioned them differently.

Don’t try to nitpick either. If people choose to collaborate, ask each other for tips and advice (and if you have done everything else right and they don’t feel threatened by each other), don’t try to determine who has contributed how much to the solution. Reward the efforts of the entire team.

Lead by Example

Leaders and managers play an incredibly important role in the development of company culture. They set the tone and are responsible for a lot of the vibe and atmosphere of any office.

If your managers don’t lead by example, if they apply a different set of rules when appraising themselves, if they get lost in micromanagement and can’t see their team clearly, they will only harm the company culture you’ve been trying to establish.

That being said, choose your managers carefully. Whether it’s better to bring in outside leadership or to let someone grow into the role from inside the company itself is often a question with no clear answer. What works for others may not work as well for you.

Whomever you appoint to managerial roles, make sure they are far from untouchable. Their teams must have the ability to offer feedback – to them as well as to those higher up. This will not only keep everyone accountable but also provide the incentive and the resources to help them become even better at what they do.

Don’t Take Yourself All That Seriously

The world of business is tough. It can be ruthless and cut-throat; it can induce copious amounts of stress, and it can even ruin lives.

However, while business is certainly a serious matter, adopting a more laid-back and relaxed atmosphere can quickly mitigate plenty of the side effects of working in a high-powered or fast-paced industry.

Taking yourself a little bit less seriously can loosen the tight grip you’ve been exerting on the wheel you’re using to guide your company.

Mistakes happen, bad days are normal, people don’t always get along, clients refuse to pay, the internet breaks down. A lot can happen in a single day that you find taxing and view as a major issue. By being a bit less serious about all of the setbacks and by taking your successes just as lightly, you can find yourself having much more fun.

It will allow your team to breathe a little easier and to rest assured that their job is not governed by a strict set of rules. They’ll work better knowing that feeling good on the job is not only possible but actually quite achievable.

Final Thoughts

How many of these company culture tips have you already implemented?

If the answer is none, don’t feel the need to rush in and start changing everything about your business from the ground up. Developing the kind of company culture you would like to see flourish in your business will often take years.

And remember – it’s all about the people. You can set up the ideal company culture on paper, but if it doesn’t suit your employees (or if they simply don’t share the values your company stands for), you will not have done much good.

Consider what your team needs to work at their best and what kind of atmosphere they need to thrive. Then slowly start working towards it.