An organization’s culture is the backbone of its identity. It’s the shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that define what and who the company is, and how its employees interact with one another. It’s also the blueprint for effective leadership.
By creating a positive friendship culture, employees are exposed to an environment that allows them to be successful. Employees tend to behave and perform in a way that correlates with their happiness and professional growth, which translates to the company’s success as well. As leaders and managers, you play a vital role in creating this culture of positive friendship.
The Value of a Positive Friendship Culture
A positive culture has several benefits and directly affects an organization’s performance. Some of these include:
- Attracting and retaining talent.
- Improves performance and productivity.
- Gives you a healthier team that can manage stress better.
Becomes part of both your employer brand as well as your corporate brand and separates your organization from the mediocre and mundane.
Historically, organizations with strong positive cultures always perform better than their competition. This list of companies with great cultures includes many well-respected organizations and high-value brands. It reflects culture as a critical element for success.
Even in professional sports, culture plays a role in a team’s success. One notable example is the NBA’s Miami Heat that prides itself on its “Heat Culture,” which has led to several championship runs in the past decade. Furthermore, General Manager positions across the sport are being populated with “relationship builder” hires that are displacing the traditional strategic personnel experts.
How Managers Can Create a Positive Friendship Culture in the Workplace
Establish a Common Mission
A clear mission, vision, and a defined set of corporate values are the essential reasons for a company’s existence. They are the driving force behind corporate strategies and their decision-making process. More importantly, sharing them can unite and motivate employees and make them feel that they are an important part of the company’s goals and objectives.
When employees are able to make a connection with the company’s purpose and values, it’s easier to see the value of their work. As managers, you can do this by aligning responsibilities and daily tasks to the greater goal. This gives a greater sense of pride, responsibility, and fulfillment, creating positive feelings that become part of the workplace culture.
Encourage Collaboration and Communication
Recent studies show that effective collaboration and communication increase productivity by 20%-25%. By encouraging open communication and collaboration, employees feel more confident that their ideas and concerns are heard and taken seriously. It also allows new team members to integrate easily and not feel left out.
You can do this by establishing a system where communication and collaboration will flourish. A few examples are:
- Regular performance feedback and evaluation.
- Utilizing effective communication tools like instant messaging, emails, or even social media.
- Using collaboration or project management tools.
Open communication even extends to non-work-related activities like team building and other company-sponsored events. These activities are avenues that reinforce positive interaction, which carries over to the work floor.
Create a Comfortable Environment
Building a positive friendship culture requires creating an environment where this culture can be sustained and flourish. Your office and / or workplace layout not only provides physical comfort but also influences employee performance and well-being.
A well-designed workplace yields different benefits, including increased employee happiness and retention. Some ways companies can create a positive and comfortable environment are through the following:
- Using natural elements (light, plants, etc.)
- Placing artwork in key locations.
- Ergonomic workstations and / or equipment.
- Providing spaces and facilities that are conducive to collaboration.
Creating this environment would make employees more comfortable and at ease in the workplace. Since they spend at least 8 hours at work, providing the right environment will make cultivating a positive friendship culture in your workplace a lot easier.
Recognize and Reward Excellent Performance
Rewards and recognition are directly linked to employee retention and morale. When morale is high, positive engagement is more likely to be strong between employees. According to a report, 40% of Americans say that they’ll exert more energy into their work if they’re recognized more often.
Of course, recognition shouldn’t be limited to performance. Recognizing positive behaviors and actions will also reinforce the culture you want to achieve. With rewards and recognition programs, employees get a sense of pride and fulfillment in their work. It sets expectations where excellent performance and positive behavior result in positive outcomes.
These outcomes can be in the form of monetary rewards, promotions, and other forms that employees can aspire to attaining. As managers, it falls on you to effectively implement these programs as part of the company’s strategy.
Championing a Positive Workplace Culture
There are many other ways to create a positive friendship culture and what works will depend on your organization’s current environment. Regardless, a positive friendship culture isn’t built overnight. Companies that haven’t focused on the importance of positive workplace culture will find it more challenging to build. Even organizations with well-established cultures cannot be complacent during these times where talent is becoming increasingly more difficult to recruit and attract.
This is because the values to be upheld, expected behaviors, and culture-building programs must be consistently championed, especially by the company’s leaders. If done effectively, the yields are overwhelmingly positive with long-term benefits not just for the employees but for the business as well.
– Carlos Acosta
Is your company seeking transformative talent? The QualiFind Group can help you secure the best available talent. With more than two decades of professional and technical recruitment experience, we understand the value of employing a competent and collaborative workforce and the positive impact that has in creating a positive workplace culture.
For further information on how The QualiFind Group can support your need for key talent, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Contact us at https://qualifindgroup.com/en/contact/ to get started!