All businesses aim to foster a strong culture. This begins by acknowledging how people are affected by their work environment. Culture has a direct impact on employee engagement, retention, productivity, and overall company profitability.

Happy employees perform better. They are more likely to stay with you longer and call off  sick less often. But, how do you create a culture that promotes engagement and productivity, to keep employees happy? Start with these five steps.

1. Explain the company’s direction
Ensure your employees know your company values and that the company’s leaders articulate them clearly. Company values must communicate what matters most to your organization and how employee interaction with one another and with customers should live and breathe those values. With clearly defined values, it’s also imperative to talk about them often. Don’t limit value-based discussions to the C-suite or to an annual seminar. It’s essential  to make them a part of daily conversations within the company and reiterate them to employees in the context of how their work supports the values. Similar to how customers need to hear a marketing message several times before it influences their behavior, employees will only adopt your cultural values when they are an integral part of workplace conversation.

2. Lead by example.
Leadership at the top must be based on integrity. If you say your company values employee respect, are your leaders respectful to their teams and support staff? If you say your company values hard work, are successes and accomplishments transparent throughout the company and celebrated at all levels, not just the top? Employees must see their leaders practicing the values of the organization to avoid becoming disengaged and frustrated. 

3. Make well-being a priority.
Employee wellness is more than just physical health. It includes emotional support, mental health, and stress management, with a goal to help employees thrive in all areas of their lives, not just at work. By re-examining leave policies, considering flexible work options, promoting diversity and inclusion, and creating recognition programs, companies can support cultural values they want to promote including things like ending employee burnout. Ensuring employees have a healthy work-life balance will help the organization with sustainable growth in the long term.

4. Give people a purpose.
Across the board and across generations, people value authenticity and they want to do work that matters. Your culture must help employees find meaning in their work other than a  paycheck. That may include promoting social and environmental responsibility, improving the lives of your customers, or helping people take the next right step in their chosen profession. Employees feel good about what they do when they feel they have a bigger purpose, which is important for their well-being and the organization’s success.

5. Support your cultural values with your policies.
Make sure your cultural values like trust, integrity, and collaboration are apparent in your policies. Overly punitive policies, for example, don’t instill employee trust. That’s one reason some companies have begun implementing unlimited paid time off. For policies like that to be successful, however, cultural values must be ingrained in the organization at all levels and from day one during new employee onboarding.
 
Cultural Mistakes to Avoid
As a final thought, here are three potential pitfalls to avoid as you work toward building a supportive, engaging culture:

1. Don’t confuse perks with culture.
Perks like free gym memberships, gourmet coffee, or flexible working hours are attractive, but they won’t instill loyalty. An employee will still leave if they have to continue working under a micromanaging boss or stay with a team that doesn’t value their contributions. Make sure exciting work, shared purpose and supportive managers are present to help keep talented team members around for the long term.

2. Don’t reduce culture to buzzwords.
Do you want an innovative culture? A high-performing, results-oriented culture? A trust-based culture? These are all great ideas, but they must align with the way your company actually operates or they are just words. One way to avoid this, according to Harvard Business Review, is to structure your cultural objectives so that they acknowledge current realities, but also provides an ideal to aim for (for example, a trust-based, collaborative culture that also aims for high performance goals).

3. Don’t tolerate jerks (even if they are top performers).
Values-based cultures must apply to everyone or it will serve no one. If your top performers are jerks and you let it slide, you will undermine your culture and you’ll probably have a retention problem. Performance evaluations should include behaviors based on cultural values such as empathy and teamwork, in addition to productivity metrics.

A positive workplace culture is defined by employee experience. When organizations value meaningful work, compassion, growth, and respect, employees will thrive. And that’s the key to creative, productive work.