Building and maintaining a positive corporate culture is vital. More than 50 percent of business executives recognize that having a positive culture in the workplace has a positive impact on engagement, profitability, company growth, and organizational value. 

Workplace culture encapsulates the personality and ethos of your company. It’s an integral part of your business, and it’s what makes your company different from any other. It embraces your company’s values, behaviors, interactions, and attitudes. Maintaining a positive workplace culture is key to optimizing employee engagement, which is why employee benefits should be a top priority.

The Impact of Company Culture

Business owners who want to maintain a positive company culture need to implement strategies that will eliminate stressors within the workplace. One of the biggest stressors for employees is money issues. According to a Prudential survey, up to 83 percent of employees offering financial wellbeing programs have seen an improvement in employee satisfaction. Financial wellbeing programs include: 

• Delivering adequate wages: There are several advantages to paying your employees more than the minimum wage. These include improving morale and engagement, lowering stress levels, and reducing absenteeism.
  
• Providing relevant benefits: Providing your employees with benefits such as health, dental and vision plans, paid vacations, and adequate time off not only reduces workplace stress, it also boosts employee loyalty and productivity. One example of a voluntary benefit is employee loan solutions, such as those offered by TrueConnect. TrueConnect offers simple and affordable loans which can help employees who are experiencing a financial crisis. 
• Presenting rewards and perks: Rewards and perks such as flexible time, remote working, gift vouchers, and awards make employees feel valued. This goes a long way to increasing employee engagement and productivity and reducing stress.

Read More: 5 Signs Your Company Culture Needs a Fix

Maintaining a Culture of Respect 

However large or small your company, conflicts are, to some degree, inevitable. Conflicts arise naturally when large groups of people are interacting, making daily decisions, and working toward deadlines. They occur when two or more parties are in direct opposition and are unable to resolve their issues. To maintain a positive culture, managers need to keep conflict to a minimum; when it does arise, conflict should be resolved as quickly as possible. 

The first step to conflict resolution is to understand what the individual conflict is about. To do this, it’s vital to listen to each side without making judgments. This is important because when people are involved in a conflict, they are usually unable to see beyond their personal opinion, and to take an objective viewpoint. It means that conflict responses may be emotional and spurred by strong feelings such as anger and resentment.

Conflict becomes a major issue when it is mismanaged, impedes productivity, and lowers team morale. Your goal should be to resolve conflict before it causes any of these problems. In order to minimize conflict and maximize resolution, it’s important to develop a strategy for recognizing a build-up of tension before it develops into full-blown conflict and to implement procedures to manage it positively and effectively.

You can stop conflicts before they start by:

• communicating with your team on a regular basis
• listening to individuals and taking their concerns seriously
• being aware of personality conflicts among members of your team
• holding weekly team meetings to allow employees an opportunity to raise any issues 

When implementing procedures to resolve conflict, it is always important to attack the problem at hand, rather than the individuals involved. Remain focused on what can be done to resolve the problem, rather than what cannot be done; this will present viable possibilities for resolution. It’s also important to maintain a non-judgmental attitude, so the individuals involved will not think that you’re taking sides. Remember that the key to conflict resolution is staying calm, listening carefully, and showing respect to each point of view.

Read more: 5 Steps to Improve Your Company Culture

Don’t Overwork Employees

When employees become burned out, the problem is not with the team member, but with the company. It’s important for business owners and supervisors to ensure that employees are not overworked. Here are some signs of overworking:

• You require your employees to work for too many hours. The impact of stress from working too many hours can cause serious health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and depression. These, in turn, lead to high absenteeism, poor engagement, and reduced productivity. Working more than 39 hours per week can be detrimental to employees’ health. If employees are buried under their workload, their productivity will begin to decline. 
• You are not allowing employees room to grow. When employees are not offered opportunities for advancement, they tend to take on more work to compensate for the lack of challenge and to impress their supervisors. Sometimes, their team leaders are not aware of their long-term career goals, so this effort goes unnoticed and can lead to overwork. To avoid this, company owners and supervisors should be very clear about each employee’s job requirements and their opportunities for career advancement. This will help prevent employees from getting burned out and keep them motivated. 
• Your employees do not have a healthy work-life balance. When employees’ workload is tipping the scales, and they have insufficient time to spend with their families or doing things that they enjoy in their spare time, their lives are out of kilter, and they feel overworked and unhappy. This can quickly lead to depression and anxiety, as well as physical health problems. You can avoid this problem by encouraging employees to maintain a balance between their work and personal lives. Get to know them personally and be supportive of events that are happening in their personal lives. 

Why Your Workplace Needs a Positive Culture

A positive workplace culture is not only good for your employees; it’s also good for your business in the following ways:

• It optimizes productivity. Increasing productivity is a major goal for your company because more productivity means more money coming in. A positive workplace culture keeps stress to a minimum and ensures that workers are happy, so they are more engaged in their jobs and more productive. 
• It improves employee retention. Losing valued members of your workforce and having to hire replacements costs your company time and money. A positive culture at work encourages employees to stay and increases company loyalty. 

Why Personal Satisfaction is Important

Personal satisfaction and empowerment that leads to a successful environment for every employee. Factors which help to garner personal satisfaction in the workplace include:

• A productive atmosphere
• A relaxed environment 
• Cooperation and support among employees

Personal satisfaction is important because it empowers employees and helps to build a positive company culture. This will help you build and retain a loyal workforce and attract new talent.

A positive workplace culture is important for the stability and growth of your business, whatever the size.  One of the most important ways to build a strong workplace culture is to support your employees’ financial wellbeing. Contact TrueConnect today to find out how we can help you provide your team with loan solutions at no cost to your company.