Building A Strong Team Culture That Lasts - Even Through A Pandemic

Building a strong team culture can mean the difference between your business’ success and your business’ failure. This article will explore the best ways to ensure a strong team culture at work.

We will consider how to create a long-term goal to work towards whilst creating interactive leadership and regular communication patterns, whilst allowing yourself to be open to criticism and learning more.

Keep reading for interesting statistics to demonstrate the significance of good teamwork.

Creating a Long-Term Goal

Working towards something is an extremely important part of engaging your team. Studies by the Queens School of Business, and by the Gallup Organisation, show that those unengaged with their work had a 37% chance of absenteeism. By uniting your team and directing them towards a greater effort which unites them, you are showing them the importance of hard work and determination. 

In this way, you are giving purpose to your workers, who may have lost the significance of their work. In this way, this allows them to have a positive view on their contributions towards your workforce. By creating piecemeal plans with your workers, you are able to create a strong team culture that supports your goals whilst increasing employee satisfaction at the same time as well, improving aspects of team productivity and allowing them to get an increased satisfaction out of their work at the same time.

Encouraging Productive Leadership

Creating a leadership style that works for everyone is a great way to build a strong team culture. A 2015 study at the University of Warwick found that happier people are precisely 12% more productive than the average individual. Therefore, creating a clear method of teamwork between your employees and your managers facilitates important communication that can be used to grow towards short term goals, and more long-term ones set, as discussed above, and improve upon your team culture.

Your team should feel comfortable providing you with information on how best to support the company, even if that comes in the form of criticism. In this way, you are encouraging a positive culture, one that works towards common goals, working with each other, and not against each other. This comes naturally through devoting time to your colleagues, and appreciating their work styles, and working with them on how to support each other in regard to the future.

Making the Time

As briefly introduced earlier, the concept of taking the time to work with colleagues can be crucial in creating a strong team culture that can be taken into the future. The Queens School of Business, and the Gallup Organisation discuss how ‘businesses with highly engaged employees enjoyed 100% more job applications’. This demonstrates the significance of truly making the time to meet with your employees, and this will begin to become recognised outside of your company as well, as they will understand the positivity of your company’s culture.

This can take place in the form of meeting weekly for example, with your colleague, allowing them a specific amount of time to communicate with you on their growth, and subsequently, the company’s growth. By setting aside a mutually beneficial time to meet, you are demonstrating that you care about your employees, and thus allows the growth of a strong and positive team culture that will last in the future.

If your intention is to implement these meetings to allow the growth of a strong team culture, you should focus these on identifying potential strategies to consider for the future and begin implementing a long-term strategy to consider yourself for building that positive culture.

Promoting Positivity

Studies by Gallup show that ‘extremely connected teams demonstrate a 21% increase in profitability’. We have already considered the importance of promoting interconnectedness for your teams as a company goal, but it is important to consider the employee, as an individual, and their role in making this happen. Promoting positivity in your team could be acknowledging and celebrating birthdays, to improve your relationship and make them feel largely considered as a member. In this way, you will build a strong team culture that can be taken into the future, and thus, last.

However, this also improves company profitability, as once you begin understanding your employees’ strengths and weaknesses, the weekly meetings discussed above can become more transparent, allowing you improve your company culture and support your business goals at the same time.

Supporting Team Growth

Promoting a work culture that supports growth and learning communicatively is a crucial component that must be a part of your strategy to improve your team culture. Statistics from INC show that ‘companies that communicate more effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain the best employees.’ By understanding what your workers need to grow, for example, access to courses or training, you are much more likely to retain the best workers possible. This is because by concentrating your resources on your existing labour, you are allowing your company to invest in its workers, thus driving up company productivity to support your future plans.

This will significantly drive down absenteeism as well, reducing the figure mentioned in the absenteeism statistic above, making this a significant strategy to consider. This is because it constantly encourages employees to consider growth within themselves, as well as the growth of the company, and whilst it is good for employees to consider the bigger picture in growth, such as that of the company, it helps to know that their individual contributions are not going unconsidered, promoting their willingness to work with others due to this understanding of self-importance.

Therefore, implementing a long-term strategy to work towards, whilst taking the time to truly invest in your employees, timewise and financially, allows companies to promote a much stronger team culture that will last into the future. This is because it will reduce absenteeism and promote productivity due to the understanding of a connected effort to ensure growth, setting the basis for a great and strong team culture.

Scott Jones is the CEO of 123 Internet Group, a full service digital marketing agency with a head office in Milton Keynes and further locations in Northampton and London we support a national audience with web design and development, search engine marketing, social media management, hosting and email services.

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