Nine Ideas to Create a Dream Company Culture

Making Office Work Better for Happier, More Productive Teams

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. It is part of my newsletter series, Take Back Mondays, where I help people love Mondays again. It has been twenty years since I entered the workforce, over which time I have worked both in larger SaaS companies and run a digital boutique agency. I have managed hundreds of people, both in-house and remotely, from multiple nationalities, ages, cultures, and languages. Today I work as a business coach to help people turn their skills and passions into online businesses. This year my eldest son graduates, and my greatest wish is for him, and all the other graduates of 2021, to love work. If you like this article, please consider subscribing!

Whether or not you work in a small or large company, one where everyone sits together in one location or a global organization spread far apart, happiness always matters. Creating a positive work culture is not easy. Check out at my horror stories from the Silicon Valley. It takes strategy and effort, but it is so worth it.

1/ Make Company Goals Everyday Goals

All employees, from executives to interns, must buy into the company goals and see them integrated into the culture at every level. When employees feel they are part of a bigger mission they believe in, they are happier and more committed.

Defining a mission is imperial. What is the big outcome the company wants to achieve? Sadly, many workers get lost in daily routine tasks and fail in the big picture. How often do you remind your team of work goals vs. tasks?

Once I hired a Business Development Intern and asked her to perform research on a new target industry. The deadline was one week to present her findings to us. To our dismay, she had barely completed half of what we’d asked her to cover, despite having worked long hours and told us she was progressing well. The reason? She was so consumed by the task of creating a presentation that she had spent more effort on her elaborate PowerPoint complete with graphics, colors, and even music than covering the demographic we had asked her to research. Sadly, she lost sight of the actual work goal. This may be an extreme example, but this problem is more common than one may think.

2/ Give More Flexible With Work Hours

Employees who feel trusted and supported via flexibility and time autonomy will do better work.

With some exceptions, such as IT support or customer service, time is not important for typical office jobs. Results are what matter. Remember having a book assignment in school? Some kids finished the entire book in one week, while others struggled the entire month. Usually, the teachers divided kids into groups by reading level. At work, it isn’t that different, yet we tell everyone to work the same eight hours. It seems strange. For me, work goals should be the focus, not tasks, to solve some working eleven hours while others need only four hours.

“Focus on being productive instead of busy.”

― Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Time management does play a big role, just not the way many companies handle it. People complete the same tasks at different speeds, but the time of the day plays a huge role. Some are more productive during the morning hours, while others feel their best work is in the evenings. There is a difference among people. This is one reason that tieing a non-client-facing office job to specific hours is not the best way to get the best work out of people. It is much better to set work goals and realistic deadlines and let people work towards them on their own clocks to set their own best work conditions.

“When people believe they are in control, they tend to work harder and push themselves more. They are, on average, more confident and overcome setbacks faster.”

― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

Lastly, I must add that Time Management is a skill most struggle with. The proof is easy to find: survey the stress levels of your workers anonymously. Also, look at the number of women who drop out of the workforce due to, among other reasons, the difficulty in juggling parenting with work. Experts frequently speak of “Work/Life Balance” when it really is more about Time Management and Time Freedom. I teach workshops on this because I’ve had to help most of my clients with it. Consider offering in-house training for your teams to teach them better methods to organize their workday.

3/ Make Work Communication More Efficient

If companies would instill better-defined policies around work communication (meetings, emails, phone, and chats) and provide training on tools, time management, and communication best practices, workers would have more time to get real work done.

Many companies have poor communication cultures. People waste much time at work on various communication channels and mistakenly call it to work. Let’s briefly go over the main work communication channels and discuss best practices:

Meeting Communication -I strongly believe that most meetings are a waste of time. I’m a fan of once a quarter having all-day meetings to get face team with teams and combine work with socializing. I also try to meet people I work with in person at least once, even if we don’t absolutely need it because facetime is so important. For regular meetings, keep them short and well-organized.

Email Communication — Email is out of control. People think writing and reading emails are “work.” I beg to differ. Most emails are poorly constructed and lack the information one needs or too long with too much information. Writing great emails is a skill most have not been taught. I have written a few suggestions on how to fix this.

Chat Communication — We live in an age of information overload and distraction. Chat software can be a blessing or a curse. Chat must be structured in such a way that it doesn’t interfere with one’s work. One must differentiate between questions that should be sent via email (important yet non-urgent) and chat (quick and urgent). Chat can be very disruptive unless controlled.

Phone Communication — In the digital age, the phone is becoming rarer than most meetings move to video conferencing, with chat gaining popularity as a phone alternative. One of the problems with the phone is when there is a conference call where many are not truly listening but trying to work through the call. The result is poor concentration in both areas. It is one reason I'm not too fond of group phone meetings, to begin with.

Which of these channels is best? That’s an easy one: The one that takes up the least time with the highest results. People can’t get work done if they spend all of their days communicating on various channels unless their jobs, such as customer service, tech support, or sales. A good exercise is to use a time-tracking tool like Toggl combined with surveys to see how long people actually spend on communications per day to render it more efficient.

4/ Celebrate Work Productivity over Tasking

Productivity shows up by accomplishments of milestones and quotas yet many companies don't do much to encourage or celebrate them (exception: Sales). If companies focused more on that and celebrated and rewarded their workers more often for their achievements, motivation would skyrocket.

How do you measure productivity? Set some stretch goals, translate them into SMART goals, and see how people accomplish them. How much can an individual or team accomplish in a given time frame at a satisfactory or above level of quality? Companies need to set goals, provide tools, and measure the productivity of their employees. When I coach career professionals, I ask them about their career accomplishments. Productive people have a long list of impressive work accomplishments. Too often, companies build an outward image of success, but the daily culture focuses on task completion over accomplishments, so the team members can’t tell me any accomplishments. No one will put on their resume “I completed 1,000 spreadsheets,” but they will talk about the RESULT of their tasks, such as “I increased my company’s profitability by 25% over two quarters.” Yes, you need both but always keep the big goals in the heads of the team.

“Rather, productivity is about making certain choices in certain ways. The way we choose to see ourselves and frame daily decisions; the stories we tell ourselves, and the easy goals we ignore; the sense of community we build among teammates; the creative cultures we establish as leaders: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive.”

― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

5/ Make Work Location a Choice

Companies are now forced to address work location and (hopefully) offer both in-house and remote work options and more flexibility to their employees.

In 2020, many companies worldwide were forced to close their locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This pushed people to work from home whose jobs were still possible, some for the first time. This created an additional challenge for both workers and managers. In addition, schools closed, so parents had the burden of figuring out how to work with their kids around. It wasn’t pretty. Thankfully, in 2021, it seems things slowly are going back to normal, but what exactly will happen with work now? Some people really like working remotely and don’t want to go back. Companies are discussing policies and hybrid solutions. Regardless of what happens next, one thing has become clear to both employers and workers: Location isn’t that important for certain office jobs. What matters most is the work setup and the environment. If people have all the equipment they need and a quiet, distraction-free space to work in, working from home can be very productive. Yet, it isn’t for everyone. Some people have been waiting to return to the office while others say they get twice the work done at home. The good news out of the pandemic: Location is no longer the main requirement for a job for many, not all, office workers.

6/ Help People Feel Included, Represented, and Understood

Better selection of managers who have first and foremost strong empathy and people skills and, whenever possible, to promote diversity, then give them the best leadership training and support possible.

Many people are treated like children at work: scolded or praised for behavior, an attitude of mistrust by management, and micro-management. This is a tragedy. Management is not equal to babysitting. People are hired to perform certain skills as true professionals, not be at the beck and the call of the manager’s whims or under constant surveillance. For optimal performance, loyalty, and satisfaction at a company, an employee or consultant must feel respected, appreciated, and trusted. Anything less, and the person won’t want to stick around. In fact, this treatment is the best way to create a toxic work environment.

The second big issue is a lack of diversity in leadership. Companies need more female, minority, LGBT, and differently-abled managers. Companies that want happy employees should make this a top priority. Instead of just saying that all are welcome in their company, let the management facts speak for this.

7/ Create a Culture for Healthy Work-Life Balance

Companies must make strong efforts to stop the overwork culture and encourage time off. Well-rested employees will perform better. Managers must be the ones to set the example.

Workers have lives outside of the office, and they should not feel bad about that. Some company cultures sadly seem to encourage employees to spend all their time at work, and managers play a huge role in creating a healthy or unhealthy work environment this way. It is a game of who works the longest hours and takes the least vacation. Women are also sometimes afraid to mention their children. When such a culture exists, women leave, and people burn out.

8/ Instill a Company-Wide Learning Culture

Invest in people. It is the only way to build the best workforce out there.

Few companies offer high-quality professional development to their employees. It seems to not a high priority. This is a shame because the online education market has exploded in recent years, and there is literally a course for anything one can imagine. In addition, the coaching world has exploded of highly trained professionals who will come into companies and deliver training to staff in almost any area imaginable. Yes, it is an expense but a small one if it results in better trained, more motivated employees.

9/ Build a Culture of Connectedness

Make All Employees Feel Like They Belong.

I saved the best for last. People want to work at a company where they feel connected — to others, the company mission, and the customers. This feeling of connectedness is probably the best thing on this entire list. Because a company can practically set up things in the other categories, this one really takes some special effort to build such a culture. Unfortunately, in some companies this isn't happening. Work teams are cultish or there is a separation between full-timers and contractors. This creates a yucky feeling.

Do you think these factors would create a happy work culture? What other ideas do you have to make employees feel more valued, supported, and want to work at the company forever? Let’s take back Mondays and love our work! Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter. It is an honor to be able to serve tips to amazing people like you. For questions, please reach out to me via Linkedin or Instagram DMs.

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