6 Steps to Start a Dynamic Company Culture

A dynamic company culture is not about beer on draft, lounges, a snack bar, or a game room; it is much deeper than those things. We have put together 6 steps to help you evaluate your company and your team and see how you can create a more dynamic company culture to better serve your employees, your customers, and your community.

1. The Basics Are Clear

Everyone starts somewhere, this we know, so why not start with the simple things you may already have in place when working on your company culture? Look at your company’s values, mission statement, passion, and vision. These items may be older and might need some tweaking to fit your current goals as a company. Change these as needed and ensure they are clear and simple. Then share your new vision, mission, and values with your entire team!

2. Support Your Team

Speaking of teams, have you looked at yours lately? Are they getting everything they need? This is a great question to ask during the current job market. Compensation is at an all-time high, and so are expenses. Ensure your team is supported in as many ways as possible.

Support can be more than compensation; it can be paid time off, banking holidays, rolling paid time off to the next year, maternity/paternity/adoption leave, 401k, or vested interest. These are all ways to show your team you care about their well-being. Then there is the ability to help them better care for themselves through health insurance.

An AADOM member-benefit Dental Office Healthcare…Click to open a new window to their website… can assist you in finding the right healthcare coverage solution for your team. This is more than health insurance; it’s a daily benefit of keeping money in your team’s pocket. Dental Office Healthcare has over 130+ carriers across the United States with full medical coverage, ancillary benefits, and so much more for your team from 1-100+ employees. This member benefit is here to help you save year after year.

3. Leaders Lead

This may sound a bit redundant, but look at your leadership team. Are they putting forth the effort? Are they able to meet the standards of your new vision and mission statement? Your leaders are the lifeline of your company culture. They are the beginning of the culture in many aspects. Give your leadership the space to mentor the team, help them grow, and feel appreciated in their role.

4. Culture Is a Feeling

Culture is more than your values and mission; it isn’t your logo and slogan, it’s not how your team dresses or even how you greet the customer. It is so much more than these things – though these make up the outward view of your culture. It is about the ties that bind your team together. It is feeling appreciated, knowing you are supported, and knowing you have space to grow in your field. Creating a dynamic company culture means friendship, understanding, humor, learning, problem-solving and decision-making, and working towards a goal together.

Culture is how your team feels when they are at work and how they view work when they are at home. To know where your company can grow, it is a good idea to talk to your team and ask them to be candid about their views on work. Many companies boast about their amazing culture when they have created unhappy and unfulfilled employees.

5. Risks are Encouraged

When was the last time your team stepped out of their box, came up with a new idea, and then used it? Encourage your team to step up and bring ideas to the forefront, then put some of them into place. If, after putting an idea to work, it doesn’t seem to fit the need, make changes or try something else. Failure is not trying and not succeeding; failure is never trying in the first place.

6. Recognition – Above and Beyond

Everyone likes to be needed, and there is nothing better than hearing you did well at something. It can be as simple as a shout-out meeting where everyone notes how someone else helped them this week or a praise board with sticky notes. Thanking someone for doing something helpful takes seconds and means so much. Something so simple helps unify your team, helps leaders be better leaders, and changes a mindset.

These 6 steps could be a huge shift for your company or a few small changes that make a world of difference for your team. Give them a try look at your goals, how you are supporting your employees, how your leaders lead, how your team feels about work, how you react to ideas, and how you praise others. By making these changes in your company, you will see it affects your team outside the workplace as well, creating happier, healthier, fulfilled employees.