1. Know Where to Begin
Assess the culture that has been set in your workspace. Understanding the original culture of the company is crucial before it can be changed into something new. Identifying the culture’s strengths and weaknesses creates open discussion and can help employees see the direction in which the culture needs to head.
Source: Forbes
2. Talk to Your Team
Create a conversation about what employees want the culture of the workspace to be shaped. Creating a strong corporate culture begins with what the employees can align with most. Considering they are the most important stakeholders of a company, it is important to get feedback from them as to how a change of corporate culture will improve their productivity and effectiveness to do their job.
Source: Inc.com
3. Stay Consistent and Transparent
Begin to align values of your company’s mission with existing employees and new hires. Practicing the mission and values that each company stands for is the core of company culture. Begin to use lingo that aligns with these missions so that it plants the seed for employees to understand the values they should align within the workspace.
Source: Inc.com
4. New Hires = Low Hanging Fruit
Change the conversation and the onboarding of new hires. Being transparent with new hires from the interview process can help new candidates realize from the get-go if they can align with the standards your company set for its culture. This not only shapes a new hire’s mindset towards a positive corporate culture, but it encourages current employees to maintain this standard that has been set.
Source: WeForum.org
5. List Expectations and Culture Standards
Give your team the opportunity to come up with a visible list of expectations and culture standards that they want for the shared workspace. Whether they want to talk about communication style or respect, this list will be a visible reminder of the goals they had in mind to change the company culture.
Source: Entrepreneur.com
6. Recognize Subcultures
It’s important to recognize the differences between each culture profile because organizations always have a dominant culture and may also contain many different subcultures. By understanding and accepting various cultures, organizations can harness the differences for success.
Source: Haworth
7. Open Communication Channels
Begin to encourage open conversation in the workplace so that employees feel better acclimated with each other, and also feel more confident in their coworker’s abilities. The more teams know about each other, the more willing they are to bounce ideas off of each other and collaborate to create better assignments.
Source: Inc.com
8. Set Realistic Goals for Change
Understand that corporate culture is an environment that is built up over time in the workspace. Setting smaller, more attainable goals will help employees see a change in a slow but feasible way. Over time these goals will be able to add up to the bigger picture.
Source: Entrepreneur.com
9. Opt for Employee-Directed Workspace Design
Workspace design can be a key factor in the culture of the office. Many companies are switching away from older conceptions of a workspace to newer and more functional spaces that align with their culture style.
Source: Entrepreneur.com
10. Listen to Employee Needs and Wants in the Workspace.
Having an open mind and actively listening to the requests of your team not only helps to align culture changes, but can also allows you to see company culture from the perception of your most valuable resource… your people.
Source: Business Insider
