Top tips on how to create a positive workplace culture

We share our top tips on how to create a positive workplace culture that retains staff.

Creating a positive workplace culture is crucial if you want to be a thriving and successful organisation that retains staff.

Workplace culture encompasses the beliefs, attitudes, customs, traditions, and behaviours that define how individuals interact within a workplace.

The quality of workplace culture impacts employee engagement, satisfaction, and staff retention. Positive cultures foster collaboration, innovation, and a sense of belonging, whereas bad cultures lead to disengagement, difficulties retaining staff, higher costs and a poorer level of care.

Here are our top tips if you want to create a positive workplace and some practical approaches to implementing them.

Have a clear purpose

Having a clear, shared purpose is crucial if you want to foster a positive workplace. You want people to understand the expectations, values and vision of your organisation.

New colleagues should receive a comprehensive induction that familiarises them with the organisation's values, beliefs, and operational models. You should also look to reinforce values and purpose through your business activities, such as using values-based recruiting and leadership styles.

Be transparent and communicative

Being transparent about your organisation’s goals, challenges, intentions and important decisions breeds trust among employees, as open communication makes them feel respected and valued.

This trust creates a sense of security and loyalty, making employees more likely to stay with your organisation. Open communication encourages employee engagement by helping them understand the bigger picture and how their roles contribute to the company's mission. It also encourages feedback, enabling leaders to address issues promptly.

Regular internal communications which share your company’s direction of travel is a simple way to achieve this, in addition to ensuring managers are sharing crucial business changes that may impact staff ahead of time.

Be inclusive

People’s differences should be recognised and considered by your organisation, with accommodations being made where appropriate. This could include protected characteristics, such as race and sexual orientation, or simply someone’s preference of name.

By creating an open and welcoming environment for your staff, you allow staff to feel happy and included while they’re at work. This helps improve staff wellbeing, which supports you in retaining staff and enables them to work better.

Compassionate leadership

By demonstrating empathy, understanding, and genuine concern for employees' well-being, compassionate leaders create a sense of trust, safety, and support within your organisation

When employees perceive their leaders as compassionate, they are more likely to feel motivated and engaged, and not feel anxious that their problems may not be understood.

Compassionate leadership can be as simple as having regular catch ups with team members where you encourage them to share their challenges with you, or being mindful of issues that team members have disclosed and considering how you can make accommodations to support them in their work.

Be progress-focused

Offering training and career development initiatives aimed at enhancing your team’s skills is crucial if you want to create a positive and progressive culture.

One way of doing this is by having managers collaborate with employees to devise career plans suited to their individual career aspirations. By doing this, managers can improve long-term job satisfaction among employees, helping retain them and creating an environment that is focused on developing people.

Staff recognition

By celebrating your staff’s contributions, moments of pride and unique role within your organisation, you demonstrate that their efforts are valued and recognised. This recognition motivates employees, encouraging them to continue performing at their best.

Public recognition not only boosts individual morale but also strengthens team cohesion. Feeling appreciated and respected enhances job satisfaction, which in turn reduces turnover rates.

This can be as simple as starting a ‘Carer of the month’ award or praising someone’s good work during a team meeting.

If you want to learn more about how to improve your culture, check out our positive culture toolkit for adult social care providers or our guest blog on how an excellent care organisation has created great workplace culture.

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