“Maintaining an effective culture is so important that it, in fact, trumps even strategy.”– Howard Stevenson
You’ve most likely heard the word “culture” if you’ve read articles on business and management or follow blogs on entrepreneurship. But what does is it mean in the business world, exactly?
Culture. “Culture guides discretionary behavior and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us how to respond to an unprecedented service request. It tells us whether to risk telling our bosses about our new ideas, and whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own work everyday, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time.” Frances Frei and Anne Morriss at Harvard Business Review
There are negative work cultures and there are positive ones. It is, obviously, much more beneficial to your employees and to the business as a whole to create a positive work culture.
There are many benefits to creating a positive work culture:
- Increased productivity
- Better employee morale
- The ability to keep skilled and dedicated workers
- Improved efficiency
- People enjoy coming to work
- Employees go home happier and more satisfied
- Happiness means more productivity
These are just to name a few. And as a bonus? Building a positive and strong work culture isn’t rocket science and definitely won’t deplete your revenue. Employees should look forward to going to their jobs and enjoy the challenges, their teammates and the overall atmosphere. While the work may be difficult, the work culture should not add to the stress of the work. Positive work culture sustains employee enthusiasm and therefore greater productivity and efficiency.
Here Are 3 Elements That Make Up a Great Work Culture
Hire Smart
Hire people who fit your work culture. You can lay out the best work culture vision, but you need some solid people to make it successful and take it to the next level. Use this rule of three: hire for passion and commitment first, experience second, and credentials third.
Recognize Achievements & Milestones
One of the biggest components to a thriving, positive work culture is letting people know they are important and recognizing a job well done. It’s overwhelmingly uplifting to see how your work impacts the company’s vision. If employees feel like meaningless pieces of the business machine, their work is likely to reflect that feeling and they will soon search for a job that’s fulfilling.
Create a Clear Vision for Your Work Culture
It helps to foster a positive work culture by making sure employees understand what the vision statement for your company is. Employees like to know that the job they are doing is making a difference. It’s easier to strive for something when your company’s vision statement is crystal clear. It will help lay the foundation for a positive work culture.
Don’t let your work culture be where everyone calls in “sick” simply to stay away. Create a fulfilling, positive, and productive work culture. Developing a successful cultural direction in your workplace will be sure to make your company thrive.
Create a Positive Work Culture with Client Focus
We understand how busy things can get at the office, and most of the time outbound calls become last on the list of priorities. Rightfully so – as you have so many other high value tasks to focus on!
If you feel this is the case with your office, then Client Focus can help. When you use our service, you reap the benefits of outsourcing the burden of task work like calling customer lists, scheduling appointments, rescheduling and managing follow up. You can rest assured that your building brand recognition by remaining in front of your customers, retaining clients, setting review appointments and leveraging your reputation to continue to drive new referrals. Your individual consultant will learn what success means to you, and deliver on that definition as an extension of your team.
Pivot Your Insurance Agency Towards Sustainable Growth Are you an insurance agent who feels that your agency is stuck? Is your team grinding new leads each month yet your agency never seems to grow? Client Focus has worked with thousands of agents over the past 15 years just like you. Our purpose is to help your insurance agency pivot onto a path to sustainable growth.
