7 Practical Tips to Build a Solid Team Culture

The reason for this shift is simple: new age companies like Google have stayed away from the traditional restrictions of the corporate world and are experimenting. This doesn’t only include new models of business, but also new models of team management.

To give you a clearer idea, here are some tips to get things right if you’re looking to build a solid team culture:

1.  Hire the right people

Investing in talent acquisition is a must for any organization. There are many ways you can go about this; for example, you can hire people, managers and employ headhunters that know the precise and specific criteria you’re looking for, or you can upskill your existing employees and give them avenues for career development.

You want people in your business you’d be willing to spend every waking moment work with 24/7. Investing in people leads to lower turnover rates, thereby creating a healthy environment in the workplace. When you treat your employees right, they don’t just do amazing work - they also become ambassadors for your brand.

To filter out candidates, you can ask some powerful questions like the ones below:

• Describe the kind of work you don’t want to do?
• What’s the project you’re most proud of?

2.  Find what makes your team tick

Find out what makes each member of your team come alive through the first series of interviews performed when applying for a position, or through informal channels such as water cooler chats and candid interactions.

Each team member has their own dynamic, and everyone in a company has a motivation which drives them to work, but some people don’t realize what this is. For some, this can be the next promotion, while for others it could be monetary compensation. For many, verbal acknowledgement of work done well would do.

It varies from person to person and you should do what you can to create an environment where people can thrive and feel nurtured and valued. Motivation is important because once you tap into it, people will initiate work proactively and often inspire others by delivering more than what’s being asked of them.

3.  Invest in wellness

Wellness is often overlooked as secondary to productivity, but a person’s state of wellbeing is what actually conditions them to work. Some of the ways modern organizations are doing this is by providing employees with napping pods, hosting chair yoga or even creating game stations for breakouts.

Some companies have in-house chefs too, just to help alleviate their people’s worries through food. Small things like this can easily translate to increased motivation among your staff. In general, prioritizing people and aligning your values with them is proving to be more than a trend in the industry.

Good companies led by strong leaders understand that employees are their most important stakeholders and aren’t replaceable like tools and machines. They also realize that a totally new level of commitment and productivity is unleashed when people care about their work and see themselves as owners rather than workers.

4.  Incentivize the little wins

Strong leaders believe in their people and their abilities, often more than people themselves do. When someone does a job well, good leaders notice and let their people know. Research has repeatedly proven that positive attention is more powerful than negative attention in improving performance.

Researchers have also found that receiving praise releases dopamine, the chemical associated with rewards in our brain. Praise basically tells our brain “Do that again.” This is why praising and recognizing people will encourage them to do more of the same in the future.

Praise works best when it’s specific and not vague. So instead of praising someone’s work as “brilliant” or “wonderful”, be more specific in appreciating their effort. Below are some specific examples of praise done well:

• “I liked how you have used juxtapositions to add humor to your sentences.”
• “I loved the report, especially the solid research you did and can be seen in the statistics you presented.”

5.  Build traditions

One thing that can be observed from most workplaces awarded for their culture is the importance the company puts on events and traditions. These aren’t just income-generating events; they can be festive and themed season-openers, birthday celebrations or even holidays. All of these become part of team rituals and play an important role in creating a unique culture for your company.

6.  Open your lines of communication

Communication within the company has been a one-way street for many generations. Employees would get evaluated after a long period of time without gaining any input from their managers in the interim.

Among the characteristics of an effective leader is openness to feedback and involving people in decisions, maintaining an open line of communication and getting feedback from employees whenever necessary.

One must always take note that even entry-level positions have a perspective that deserves to be heard. How you see things as a leader is different from anyone else who does the frontline work day by day. Thus, opening lines of communication can deepen your understanding of problems customers face and can lead into developing systems that can make work easier for the employee and beneficial for the customer.

7.  Superserve your micro communities

It might seem tacky to form clubs based around niches of interest among your employees, but forming communities would allow your employees to take a step back, relax and be themselves. This will eventually lead them to better do the tasks they’re responsible for. These interests can be based around hobbies like reading, movies, television shows and video games, for example.

Final thoughts

Everyone in a company plays a major role in building a company’s culture. An organization’s people are a reflection of its leaders and the values they stand on. When employees are proactive in doing their tasks and feel fulfilled while serving a bigger purpose, it’s a sign that the company has a strong leader.

Nonetheless, there is no one formula to building a culture -- what works for one company may not work for another. It depends on the people that you work with, your industry and the context surrounding that.

Treating your employees as employees will make them just that. Treating them as people will unlock their full potential by creating more trust, higher engagement and better performance. Lastly, remember that building a company culture doesn't happen overnight; it happens through a series of continuous and consistent steps. It will include moments of play, fun, mistakes and new discoveries. Culture should enable performance, rather than stand in its way.