What is business culture?
Business culture is the style or model followed by a company that defines how employees and managers at different levels of the hierarchy interact with one another, as well as how all employees of a company interact with customers. Some of the standards of a company’s business culture are formally written as company policy, although most are not.
For example, business culture could be the way that employees in the customer service department of the business interact with customers, or it could be the way which emails are formed and written between employees and managers. The business culture of the company is gradually formed over time and covers every interaction and communication that happens throughout the business, becoming a standard for communication within the company.
Why is it so important?
The business culture maintained by a company impacts the way that it is perceived by its employees, as well as the public. Business culture can make or break a company, with a good business culture helping to improve the efficiency of the day-to-day tasks of the organisation, and a poor one leading to the complete breakdown of communication within the organisation.
How you can improve your business culture
Below, we have outlined several methods that you can use to improve your overall business culture and therefore the efficiency and professionalism of your company:
Make employees aware of your desired business culture
To change your business culture, you must first make all employees in the company aware of your desired business culture, as well as what is wrong with the current standard. We recommend holding weekly meetings to outline the progress into achieving your desired business culture and giving your employees targets to help improve it.
Create formal documentation
You should also try creating and enforcing a formal documentation outlining the business culture you are trying to achieve. This will help give your employees a set of undebatable guidelines for how they should carry themselves and behave within the organisation. To effectively make sure employees are aware of this new company policy, you could host training sessions to outline what is involved in this new business culture and how they should go about meeting it.
Lead by example
Training all of your employees on your desired business culture can be very expensive and time-consuming. Another method for implementing your desired business culture is through leading by example. This method involves the managerial staff of your organisation behaving parallel to your desired business culture, with the hope that other employees within the organisation will follow suit.
Overall, business culture is an essential part of most businesses in the modern world, forming the way that the entire business is run, as well as how it is perceived by the public. Business managers should make a conscious effort to improve their business culture using the techniques we have listed above.