How can you build a strong company culture that encourages employee engagement?

I strongly believe that empowered people empower others. Leaders identify and build several leaders. Give employees the autonomy to make decisions and contribute to the success of the organization. Empowerment fosters a sense of ownership and accountability. Ensure that employees understand how their roles contribute to the overall success of the company. Create an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas, concerns, and feedback, employee surveys, and suggestion boxes. Demonstrate transparency, honesty, and integrity in all interactions. Conduct regular performance reviews and provide constructive feedback.

Establishing a robust company culture begins with defining your purpose and values. Your purpose encapsulates why your organization exists and the impact it aspires to make. Values serve as guiding principles for your actions and decisions. Clearly articulating your purpose and values enables effective communication of your vision to the team, fostering inspiration and alignment. Moreover, using these as filters in the hiring, rewarding, and promotion processes helps build a cohesive team of individuals who share and contribute to your organizational ethos.

Purpose: Your purpose serves as the North Star for your organization, guiding your strategic direction and decision-making. It answers the question, "Why do we exist?" Having a clear and compelling purpose not only motivates your team but also resonates with customers and stakeholders. It creates a sense of meaning and direction, fostering a shared sense of identity and passion among employees. To define your purpose, consider your organization's unique strengths, passions, and the positive impact you aspire to make in the world.

Eine Kultur, in der es m?glich und erwünscht ist, dass jedes Mitglied die eigenen St?rken einbringen kann, ist ein N?hrboden für Engagement und intrinsische Motivation. Ein gemeinsames Ziel und hoffentlich unterschiedliche St?rken sind die Grundzutaten für erfolgreiche Teams. Jeder und jedem ist klar: Ich kann mit meinen ureigenen St?rken etwas zum gro?en Ganzen beitragen. Ich bin damit ein wichtiger Teil der Organisation. Andersartigkeit wird nicht als Bedrohung verstanden, sondern ist erwünscht.

Define Core Values and Mission: Start by clearly defining the company's core values and mission. These should reflect what the company stands for and guide its policies and decisions. HR can help communicate these values to ensure they are understood and embraced by all employees. Hire for Cultural Fit: When recruiting, look beyond skills and experience. Consider how potential employees fit with the company culture. HR can develop interview techniques and questions that help assess cultural fit. Foster Open and Transparent Communication: Encourage open communication channels within the organization. HR can facilitate this by implementing regular town hall meetings, anonymous feedback systems, and open-door policies.

Continuing with the second step, cultivating a strong company culture involves creating a positive and inclusive environment. A positive setting nurtures trust, respect, and collaboration among team members, supporting their well-being, growth, and creativity. Encourage this environment through regular feedback, recognition, and appreciation, promoting learning and development, and celebrating both successes and failures. An inclusive environment embraces diversity and equity, ensuring everyone has a voice, a sense of belonging, and fair opportunities for contribution and growth. Foster inclusivity by promoting open communication, actively seeking and listening to feedback, and addressing and preventing bias and discrimination.

Inclusive workplaces foster engagement in two key ways: Innovation and creativity: Inclusion brings together individuals with different experiences, skills, and perspectives. This fosters innovation and creativity within the organization. When employees are encouraged to share their unique ideas and perspectives, they feel empowered and engaged in finding new solutions and improving processes. Trust and psychological safety: They promote trust and psychological safety. When employees feel safe to express their opinions, ask questions, and take risks without fear of judgment or negative consequences, they are more likely to be engaged. They feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, which leads to increased engagement and productivity.

Company culture starts with you. Belief in the culture is the starting point, influencing others to embrace it. Authentic alignment with cultural values and consistent, tangible behaviors set the standard for the entire organization. Actions speak louder than words; they reinforce the culture and contribute to a positive feedback loop. As a cultural architect, your belief and actions lay the foundation and construct the building of a vibrant and positive company culture. Continuous attention, adaptation, and collective commitment are essential for fostering success and employee satisfaction.

El entorno positivo es el segundo paso para ensamblar la cultura organizacional, como líder, eres el principal responsable del clima laboral, con lo que comunicas, con la manera cómo presentas, previenes y enfrentas los conflictos, con el interés que muestras hacia las personas y miembros de tu equipo y con lo que haces, y en definitiva la organización, para facilitar la vida de las personas dentro y fuera del trabajo.

I find listening between the lines will often tell you more about what a person believes. Then you create an honest dialogue, that does is judgement free and open to discover hidden treasures that the person may not even know exists. This takes discernment, and wisdom.

It can be difficult to “let go” as a leader, but one of a leader’s key objectives is to build future leaders. Therefore, ensuring the team members feel ownership and accountability over results is critical. When team members have a great working culture, they are more likely to take initiative to get things done, especially when there is high psychological safety in the team - meaning they won’t be blamed if it doesn’t go as planned.

Advancing to the third step, building a robust company culture involves empowering your team to take ownership and initiative. Foster a sense of ownership where team members feel responsible and accountable for their work and results. Encourage initiative, motivating team members to take action and seek opportunities for improvement and innovation. Empowerment can be achieved by delegating authority and autonomy, establishing clear and meaningful goals and expectations, and providing necessary resources and support. Additionally, encourage team members to share their ideas, opinions, and solutions, involve them in decision-making and problem-solving processes, and recognize and reward their efforts and achievements.

If you are Coach, you athletes take your word and stand behind everything you promote. And as you continue to take ownership of your own destiny and behavioral actions. The team around you will hopefully, be of themselves and also show leadership, companionship and integrity when it comes to building their reputation and helping everyone on the team grow including themselves! In order to learn how to dribble a basketball, you must observe someone that loves and knows how to dribble and I ask can they show you, if you may. And if they are willing to show you how to dribble, then the rest is history. That’s how an athlete takes the first steps to being initiative!

Sadly too often leaders, boards and the senior management teams spend so much time, money and energy building a strategy but systematically fail to successfully communicate and embed this core strategic vision into the company culture. This is where the comms team has a crucial part to play. Every single staff member should have a clear understanding of the strategy and crucially - their part in supporting it - in order to create an inclusive and proactive culture for the good of all. The same applies for customers and members.

The fourth step to building a strong company culture is to align your culture with your strategy and performance. Your performance is the measure of how well you execute your strategy and deliver value to your customers and stakeholders. By aligning your culture with your strategy and performance, you can ensure that your team members understand their roles and contributions, that they are aligned with your priorities and objectives, and that they are motivated and rewarded for their results. You can align your culture by communicating your strategy and performance regularly and transparently, by linking your values and behaviors to your outcomes and indicators, and by reviewing and adjusting your culture as needed.

Aligning organizational culture with strategy and performance requires a leadership-led, integrated approach. Leaders must embody and communicate cultural values, assessing compatibility with strategic goals. Integrate culture into performance management, defining expectations and recognizing aligned behaviors. Transparent communication, training programs, and employee involvement are vital in this process. Regularly measure and assess progress, adapting to changes in culture, strategy, and performance to maintain alignment and cohesiveness.

Being a leader means that if you know better, you have to do better. Go against the grain; speak up; fix the problem/s if you know that something is dead wrong, unethical, or worse that is taking place at your institution. Be fearless and take care of your constituents instead of pleasing the boss on top of you. Respect is indeed earned.

One often overlooked yet potent aspect of building an exceptional company culture is "cultivating a culture of psychological safety". It's the rare gem that fosters an environment where team members feel empowered to take risks, express their thoughts without fear of ridicule, and contribute without apprehension of judgment. This safety net enables innovation, as it encourages diverse perspectives and allows for open dialogue. By valuing every voice, regardless of hierarchy, you create an atmosphere where people thrive, leading to heightened engagement, creativity, and a shared sense of belonging. Psychological safety isn't just a concept; it's the bedrock for a culture that breeds excellence.

Creating a strong company culture among employees can seem like a big challenge. Because each of these employees has a different mindset and character. To manage this well, I think it is important to be feedback-oriented and open to all kinds of constructive feedback.

It's important for leaders to walk the walk. Meaning if you are telling your team to unplug during PTO or after hours but you're frequently working then, it doesn't create physiological safety among your team. If you truly need to be working then, schedule your emails and Slack messages so they don't cause your employees to feel pressured to respond when they're off.

I see that Consciousness is pushing people to move beyond what is known, what has worked in the past but no longer does and how to move beyond into new territory. I see that often people don't know how to move out of what no longer works and move into the unknown and new territories. What are the clues that are pointing out of the old and into the new, are often things that our minds and ego don't like, but if we approach them in a new way, then we find the treasures that are hidden. When we learn how to be open within and create a dialogue with those patterns, there is a wisdom that is revealed that points to new directives in both our personal and professional lives.