Culture trumps everything. To further quote best-selling author Dr. Gustavo, culture in the workplace drives your employees’ decisions, thoughts and emotions. And during the current labor shortage, a great workplace culture is not only what is going to drive workers to your organization but encourage them to stay.
Company culture is a set of shared values and beliefs about appropriate and inappropriate behavior for an organization and its employees. Company culture includes things like mission statements and values plus the relationships between leaders and employees, according to Indeed. And let’s face it, there will always be certain types of candidates who only chase dollars and if they’ve come to your company just because of pay, they’ll go somewhere else for the same reason.
Below are six components to focus on to create a great workplace culture.
- Build a Recognition Program. Employee recognition is a cornerstone of a great workplace culture, but it requires more than just recognizing workers at meetings. Company leaders need to learn what it means to show recognition and think intentionally about how it’s expressed. Recognize your employees in a way that’s personal and shows you care about them as people. Treat them to a staff lunch that doesn’t include any talk about work. Use your website to showcase your employees and how you value their work. These features can include employee of the month write-ups and construction team achievements, like beating a safety record or utilizing the latest techniques. Not only are these features a great way to recognize your employees but your website is one of the first things potential clients look up when searching your business.
- Offer Growth Opportunities. Employee development is one of the best ways to recognize and retain employees. Investing in your employees shows them you’re invested in their future, illuminating a career path with your company. Educational opportunities help to build a more skilled workforce, which will draw in new talent who also know the value of gaining new skills. A learning management system (LMS) can help by providing a platform to introduce and track skill development.
- Incentivize your workforce. Employees are more apt to participate in strengthening your company if there is some type of incentive for doing so. Take our employee survey and get your name added to an Amazon gift card drawing. Complete a project early and your team earns a bonus. Refer an employee to come work for us and receive cash. Employee referral programs are actually a great way to recruit qualified candidates. A referral program offers a bonus for every successful referral that ends up as a new hire. Bonuses can include cash, PTO, gift cards, eligibility for a drawing, recognition or other types of compensation. Plus employee referral programs are a great way to gauge your culture because happy employees will gladly ask others to join the team.
- Thoughtfully communicate. While work environments should be pro-people and geared toward collaboration, team building and friendship, it should also be about thoughtfully connecting with your workers. Pick up the phone and touch base with your workers about what’s going on at home, instead of just asking about work. Some personal communication will go a long way towards recognizing employees; but it also gives managers some insight about how they can improve their workers’ work/life balance.
- Create a Feeling of Oneness. Companies are full of hierarchies from C-suite employees to entry-level crews and those hierarchies can isolate teams, making some workers feel less valued because they feel left out or that their opinions don’t matter. Creating a culture of oneness helps everyone feel included and that they have a voice. Implementing a diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) plan is a good place to start. You can also take steps to include all your employees in company-wide meetings and events. Company transparency is for ensuring your employees feel heard.
- Fairly Pay Your Employees. While there are many reasons an employee will stay with a construction company, pay is definitely one of them. Your company culture might be top notch but if you’re not paying your employees fairly, they’ll end up moving on. Construction companies must pay their workers competitively. In the US, construction workers make an average of $37,890 per year. Matching pay with your competitors can help level the playing field when attracting workers. But offering incentives to earn more can help them stay. Compensation can include pay but also performance and retention bonuses and profit sharing.
Like we said, culture trumps everything. Without it, you’ll never be able to build a successful team that can take your company to the next level. Consider investing in tools, like Arcoro’s LMS, that can help create a great workplace culture.
Arcoro’s LMS is a cloud-based solution that makes it easy to provide and keep track of training completions and certifications for compliance and upskilling. The Arcoro LMS enables organizations to capture, create, manage and share knowledge to improve workforce productivity, accelerate critical business processes, support compliance and power organization performance.
