Happiness at work begins with culture

Do you wish sometimes that you could just give your employees a pill that would make them happier and more productive? Happiness and success starts with a company’s culture. What kind of culture have you created for your company? When your employees leave work do they wish they never had to come back? Or do they leave feeling like they put in a good days work for a great company ready to do it again the next day?

In human resources, culture is defined as “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization (such as a business).” You as the owner define the culture and establish work and human resource systems to embrace and nurture it.

As a Kansas City HR company, our HR experts see many businesses taking a laid back approach to creating culture in their workplace. Some have relaxed dress codes, silly titles, ping pong tables and even take your dog to work day. Do these things actually lead to better employee productivity? Probably not, but they do set the tone for how businesses is done in your organization.

You don’t have to be an HR expert to know that happy employees are productive employees. As long as it’s legal, moral and ethical, you can define the culture however you want. Just make sure that the policies, procedures and practices align with the culture. This includes hiring those who fit the culture. It is a top down philosophy for instilling good business practices. So how do you create culture in your business? An INC magazine article had some good advice, and as an outsourced HR

firm, we agree.

Create and define your organization’s mission, vision and values.

Owners need to establish a road map for success. The first step is understanding where you want your business to go, otherwise you won’t know how it’s going to get there. For instance, is this a vehicle for retirement? Is it to pass on to family? Is it quick growth for acquisition?

Once you know the endpoint you can focus on the path. Then layout everything including all thoughts, decisions and actions so they will align. This will help guide your business down the road to success. Make your vision short, memorable and repeatable. Long or confusing paragraphs cannot guide thoughts, decisions or actions of the employees, mostly because they can’t be remembered, much less repeated. Sometimes, an owner is too close to develop a clear mission and an outsourced HR expert can offer an outside perspective.

Define your businesses purpose.

Everyone needs a purpose in life; this is just as true in businesses. If your company’s purpose is only to make money, employees won’t stand behind it for long. If the purpose is compelling and gives them a compelling reason to work at your company, it will attract passionate employees who want to help fulfill that purpose. If you create a purpose that is a benefit to humankind, not just your company, you will attract and retain employees, which will produce the same affect with your customers.

Align the culture with your business model.

Take a good, long look at your business model. Is it in alignment with the wants, needs and demands of customers? Is it taking advantage of all of the possibilities and opportunities that the Information Age has to offer?

If your company’s business model is deeply entrenched in hard up-selling and long contracts or you don’t treat the customer like they matter, make changes to meet their wants, needs and demands. People now have a choice and a voice, and companies must evolve or dissolve. An outsourced HR company can help provide clarity in customers’ mindsets.

Create a sustainable model.

Many businesses create a culture that works great when it’s a start-up and there are very few employees. As the company grows the culture is lost. To create sustainability, you must have a recruiting, training and development system to instill culture from the beginning and foster it throughout the employees’ tenure. It must be easy and repeatable.

Broadcast your values.

Values let the outside world know what your business is all about. To come up with your company’s values, it makes sense to get everyone’s input, as they will need to embody them and live by them. Assess your company and see what the current values are. If they are not what you desire, create values that will guide the people and the company toward success. You can have any number of values, it’s up to you. But keep in mind that your values will direct the way you do things in the future, so choose wisely.

Creating these five key structures to frame your own unique culture, aligned with the wants, needs and demands of the employees and customers and the Information Age is well worth the time and effort. Once the structure is set, allow the people in your organization to live it. Your culture will then be the blueprint of “What”, “Why” and “How” you do things–now, and long into the future, helping your employees and company to reach its full potential.

Developing a strategy to execute long-term while getting all of your employees on-board with that mission is a venture that takes a bit of expertise. Getting support from an outsourced HR firm can help make it fun, repeatable and give your staff a prescription for success! No happy pills required.