How To Build A Strong Team Culture In 10 Steps
Publié le 7 February 2022
By following these useful guidelines, you know how to build a strong team culture in 10 steps, and enjoy all the benefits of an improved and collaborative workspace.
One of the most important keys to a successful workplace is teamwork. As leaders, collaborators, and coworkers, we must all devote time and energy to the practice of teamwork. Despite this, 86% of employees and executives blame workplace failures on a lack of collaboration between team members.
In every company, having a strong team culture is one of the most effective ways to achieve big company goals. A strong team culture will help to ensure that employees feel invested in the planning, problem-solving, and goal-setting for the team’s vision. Creating a strong team culture will help businesses achieve their goals and recruit additional talented applicants.
The advantages of having a strong team culture
A strong team culture can provide multiple benefits at all levels of an organization, whether you’re an employer or an employee. The benefits of a strong team culture include:
- You take pleasure in your work. Great teamwork is supportive, respectful, and focused on achieving a common goal. These elements all contribute to the creation of a great environment to work, helping employees enjoy the day-to-day process of completing their work.
- A solid infrastructure. The things that drive performance make up an excellent organizational infrastructure. Improving customer service, employee performance reviews, staff promotions, dispute resolution, and employee perks are likely to improve with a positive work environment based on strong team culture.
- You become more involved in the process. A company with a good culture in the workplace is more likely to engage and retain its employees. As a result of your involvement, your well-being and performance will improve over time.
- Interpersonal conflicts are less frequent. Employee conflicts are less likely to occur and will not deter the entire team since an organization based in strong team culture will have systems in place to equitably handle employee disagreements.
- Your contributions are greatly appreciated. Workers can easily take credit for their contributions to organizational performance because strong team cultures feature communication and management mechanisms that reward employees for their accomplishments. This is why employee appreciation makes an important piece in building a strong team culture.
- It attracts the best and brightest. As an employer, investing in creating a strong team culture allows you to establish a great workplace with a solid reputation that attracts skilled potential employees who can help the company grow and succeed.
How to build a strong team culture in 10 steps
With an increasing number of employees working remotely, it’s more important than ever to build and sustain an effective team culture. Businesses need to develop new strategies to foster a sense of connection and purpose that allow people to function at their best even when they work from home and don’t see each other every day at work.
Now, let’s discuss the basics of how strong team culture is developed and discover the steps to putting it into practice in the workplace.
1. Begin at the very top
The most crucial tools at a leader’s disposal are strategy and culture. Especially if you’re starting a home business and need employees working remotely, this becomes a crucial step. While a strategic plan provides the path for where you want to go, the culture motivates your team to get there. This means that workplace culture cannot simply be delegated to human resources. It should instead be at the forefront of every leader’s responsibilities.
2. Create a bigger perspective around excellent team culture
Having a group of individuals focused on a collective endeavor greater than themselves is crucial for establishing an effective and strong team culture. To develop a strong team, you must have a compelling purpose.
People cannot be forced to join developing teams; they must want to be a part of it and participate. As a result, every leader’s most critical role is to clearly define a vision and how the team will achieve it. All team members must comprehend how their contributions fit into the larger picture.
Reinforcing the team’s larger vision must be done regularly. It can’t just be stated once and then forgotten; for the team’s sustained growth and productivity, leaders must find ways to instill this sense of purpose regularly.
3. Meet regularly
Having a weekly meeting will significantly impact on creating a strong team culture. Regular meetings will foster teamwork, increase productivity, and emphasize the importance of team improvement.
Meetings should be scheduled ahead of time and everyone should be aware of the agenda before the start of the session. Meetings should have clearly defined roles; for example, one person can lead the meeting, another can act as a timekeeper, and another can take notes on the conversation. This lets employees know that each of them has a separate function which is crucial for the whole meeting process. In the meantime, learn some community management and engagement techniques to help achieve maximum results.
These gatherings should be used to debate issues, find solutions, and foster relationships. While it can be good to discuss topics that arise, make sure you don’t lose sight of the meeting’s primary goal; don’t let other interests or topics on the agenda disrupt the discussion as this can be seen as a lack of respect for the limited time of employees.
4. Create leaders, not managers
Mentorship takes precedence over management in a strong team culture, which is why cultivating mentorships will be critical.
Communicate with team members to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Develop flexible schedules for everyone to accomplish their work in the most efficient way possible, but not so relaxed that they become unmanageable. If working remotely, make sure to use essential tools like Google Meet noise cancellation software, audio checker, and others.
Teach your team members to provide constructive feedback that promotes support and open collaboration rather than feelings of scruitney. Along with your team members, facilitate and engage in improvement activities.
Because the most excellent approach to teaching leadership is by example, make sure to take the time to help employees improve their work and recognize their achievements.
5. Get to know the people on your team
It is critical to spend time getting to know your team members. This will help strengthen the group while fostering a strong work culture.
This entails celebrating birthdays, promotions, and holidays with your coworkers. Encourage friendships by eating lunch together regularly. In the special corporate events, make an invitation for every employee and make them feel a very special part of the team.
A global pandemic has obviously complicated things. “Most sought-after companies by employees are the ones that have committed to a hybrid work model”, says Avital Shenkar, a Talent Recruiter at Elementor. “So, we have to make the days employees show up to the office count. At Elementor, we place a heavy premium on scheduling in person all-hands meetings at the office. But, we make sure that they are the kind of events employees actually want to participate in. Every few weeks we kick things off with some cocktails and even raffle off some pretty nifty prizes to those who attend the meetings in the flesh.”
6. Encourage feedback
One of the most effective strategies to help developing teams improve is to provide proactive, constructive feedback. If your team is big, you should also consider digital options such as sending email or bulk SMS messages as a way of appreciation. While sending an email to remote work teams, make sure to focus on details such as DMARC records to avoid any security issues.
Because no two people are the same, providing feedback should also be done in different ways. Another reason why it’s critical to build a team with strong relationships with your members is that when they trust you, they’ll listen to your advice because they know you’re looking out for their best interests.
Rather than waiting until a problem arises before providing feedback, make it a habit to check in with your team members regularly to see how they are doing and where they may improve. Allow for two-way conversation by taking the time to listen as well.
7. Encourage a learning culture
Encourage everyone to keep learning and expanding their skill sets by fostering a learning culture. This can be accomplished by providing continual training and personal development opportunities. Thanks to the growth of online learning, people can now learn on their own time, when it is most convenient for them. Provide team members with access to online courses and the opportunity to take on additional duties. For example, if your developers team improves their skills in integrating proper WooCommerce hosting, it will also be beneficial for your company’s website improvement.
Team members will be less likely to become complacent or bored in their jobs if they are encouraged to learn and achieve new goals regularly. They will also be able to develop new abilities that will benefit the team and even affect positively on the sales process of the company. A new method of learning is to find niche podcasts to listen. These will help grow as a person and as a professional at the same time.
Treat your team members as individuals, not as resources to be exploited by the company. Find strategies to boost their self-confidence, ambition, independence, and desire to learn more. This will result in a better understanding of decisions, increased input into decision-making, and a stronger sense of community.
8. Create a list of your team’s values
Strong team cultures can take a variety of forms. What works in one location may not work at all in another.
It will be time well spent if you take the effort to define the values that will guide your team. Make this a group activity so that everyone feels included and believes in the end product.
Create a document that outlines what you want your team to be, what you don’t want it to be, and how you want to treat each other using value terms. This document will eventually act as a guide for the entire team and assist new hires in swiftly integrating and understanding your culture.
9. Individual KPIs should be combined with shared objectives
Setting individual and shared team goals encourages team members to collaborate rather than compete with one another, as it will benefit them to work together. For example, if the designers are working together with a logo maker, they should involve other teammates in the process too, so they can express their opinion and the process will become more effective.
Clarity is crucial in this situation. Everyone on the team should be aware of what you’re aiming for, how to tell if you’re on the right track, and what success looks like.
10. Create a sense of psychological security
There is no such thing as a team without trust. Google studied team performance for two years and discovered that the best developing teams shared one attribute: they all have psychologically safe team cultures that allow for mistakes and see them as learning opportunities.
Individuals will dare to be innovative and think outside the box in environments where people are willing to take reasonable risks and are not immobilized by dread of the repercussions.
Creating a strong team culture will lead to a climate of trust and respect among team members that encourages them to communicate, develop, and innovate.
Conclusion
We’ve now studied various indicators of a strong team culture, some techniques for creating one, and activities for promoting it. Use this knowledge of how to build a strong team culture in 10 steps to apply what you’ve learned to change the culture of your existing employer and attract the top individuals in your field.
