I’m a firm believer that companies need to drop the stuffy, formal act. Imagine walking into an office where there are strict sets of rules and company policies everyone is expected to follow at all times. Imagine:
- Have to be in the office by 9am sharp every day? Nope.
- Business suits only? No thanks.
- Rules against chit-chatting with coworkers in the elevator? Hard pass.
Perhaps there’s a reason why we romanticize the startup culture and we don’t use that same tone when talking about corporate offices. When I think startup culture, I think of laid back but highly motivated individuals wearing jeans and a t-shirt in an open-plan office. It’s a stark comparison to the cubicles and clean-cut, suit-wearing folks I picture at a Fortune 500 company.
As a disclaimer, I should probably mention I wear a suit to work. Not because my company dress code mandates it or because some higher being says I need to look like that guy on Wall Street. Wearing a suit is part of my personal culture – it’s like a reminder to myself that I’m here to get work done and the minute that jacket comes on it’s go-time.
No one likes working in a toxic environment and sometimes the simplest fixes around the office can make a world of a difference to your employees. For some enterprises, I suggest employees focus on rediscovering their value proposition through team building exercises. Rethinking every detail from a sales funnel to how your employees interact with one another can have a huge impact on your company down the road.
Have you evaluated how efficient your employees are with their emails? Do you change up the interview questions every now and then? It might be time to re-evaluate your enterprise from the ground up.
Every business is different so we should expect workplace cultures to differ too. It doesn’t matter if your business is raking in millions of dollars annually or just getting off the ground – a great workplace culture is also a productive one.
Talk to Your Employees
This is pretty simple, but you’d be surprised to hear how many employees leave a job because they were underappreciated. Call it a culture problem or a communication problem, but at the end of the day, there’s no excuse for it.
Talk to your employees. Find out what’s going on with them: what do they like to do on the weekend? What’s their preference for the company lunch? Understand their work frustrations and take time to listen to their career passions. You don’t have to shower them with praise to make them feel appreciated. Instead, show interest in them as if they’re actual people (because they are).
Sit down with your new hires the first week on the job and get to know who they are – not as your employees, but as unique individuals. Saying hi in the hallways or in passing goes a long way with your workers and it shows them that you’re not a stuffy, holier-than-thou boss.
Let Your Team Be Themselves
The best companies I’ve worked with all shared one trait – they let their employees be themselves. Want to wear a comfortable hoodie to work? Go for it. Want to decorate your workspace with pictures of dogs? Have a blast. At the end of the day, what really matters is that they feel comfortable as themselves at work.
Of course, there’s a balance that leaders have to enforce. I’ve seen great company cultures suffer because there was too much leniency and employees suffered because of lower standards. That said, if they want to be themselves on the job and it doesn’t get in the way of their productivity, let them. Happy and comfortable employees do the best work.
Stop Working Every Now and Then
One of the staples of startup culture is the drive to constantly improve. It’s inspiring and it’s great, but take a damn break every now and then and spend some time with your team. There will always be time to work. Take some time every week, close your email, and grab a case of beer for the office. If it’s not Friday afternoon and beer isn’t in the stars, grab a coffee. Whatever your pleasure, just drop the work guise and hang out with your team.
Seriously, take a break. My eyes start crossing when I stare at my computer screen for more than a couple of hours, don’t yours? Sometimes I find myself drawing a blank on an assignment. And it’s not uncommon in a lot of workplaces either. A quick reprieve from your office can help you recharge.
It’s by far the best way to create a great company culture. Some companies I work with have instituted in-office happy hours at four every Friday. Guess what? It works. Everyone drops what they’re doing and simply enjoys spending time with each other. The result is a group of people that love working with one another. At the end of the day, that’s all you can ask for in a superb culture.
To be frank, people don’t want to work in corporate environments that feels suffocating. They want to work to live, not the other way around. Startup and small business cultures offer the opportunity to make this a reality, and countless people – particularly millennials – are foregoing standard opportunities for companies they genuinely like.
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