10 Activities to Improve Workplace Culture

The company culture is an integral part of a brand's makeup. It’s also a key ingredient in that company’s success or failure. Many businesses are learning how important a positive company culture is and are taking steps to foster and cultivate it. 

While there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, there are some habits you can engage in and activities to improve workplace culture that can be beneficial to your company culture and help propel cultural change and growth. What’s more, it can even improve employee retention.

Habits to Improve Workplace Culture

Give Credit Where Credit is Due 

One of the first things you can do to improve the company culture at your company is to adopt the mantra of giving credit where it is due. Employee recognition, including any and all contributions from your employees, highlighting the positives of the task performed, and giving honest employee feedback about the mistakes without insulting their talent and credibility. 

You should also reward valuable contributions by your employees and teams to motivate and incentivize them to do better. Research shows that when people feel like their work matters, they feel a higher level of employee satisfaction, motivation, and employee engagement. 

Promote Coworker Relationships

Everyone wants to be in a place where they feel like they fit in, be it an office or workspace, a classroom, or any other place; strong relationships with other people can go a long way in making people feel like they belong. 

Therefore, if you want to improve your organizational culture, you should promote and support strong coworker relationships. Great relationships have shown to have a direct effect on a person’s productivity and motivation to show up for work. 

Positive company culture and workplace design go hand in hand. So, why not consider an office reconfiguration? Knowing how to make a collaborative office space can help improve organizational culture and is one of the best ideas to improve office productivity. 

Allow Individuality 

It’s important to remember that the people in your company are fully functional adults, and successful in their respective fields; they don’t need nor want to be micromanaged during their entire workday. They are also each unique with different needs and ways of working efficiently. 

Once you accept this and allow people to express their inherent individuality, you will see a drastic improvement in your workplace or team culture. Allow them a chance to be creative, to take initiative, to step up to the task, and watch them flourish and boost your company up along with them.

Be Flexible

Following the same line of thought, it’s high time for companies to incorporate some flexibility in their dealings with their employees. It’s important to treat your workers as human beings, not just work machines. Allow some flexibility in their office hours; allow people to take time off in emergencies. Show some humanity and your employees will treat you the same way. 

Communicate

Another very important step in improving the work environment or team culture is to practice effective communication. Honesty is the best policy, as long as you know how to say things without hurting other people. 

Clearly communicate what is expected of each person and what is flexible or negotiable. Be clear and concise when acknowledging contributions from people, and even more so while mentioning their shortfalls. 

Promote Team-Building 

Finally, any company that wants to improve its work culture should spend some effort on team building. This can be done through special team building activities and games, as well as regular gatherings off-site. 

People who feel truly part of a team feel much better about doing their part of the job than people who work individually, without seeing or knowing the bigger picture. 

Team Building Games Most Effective for Improving Workplace Culture

There are tons of games and activities that can help with team building and work culture, but below are a few of our favorite company culture ideas.

Flip It 

An ideal game for boosting creativity and out-of-the-box thinking among the team members. The group has to stand on top of a tarp and figure out a way to flip it, using just their feet. Such an activity forces people to make use of their creativity and clearly communicate their ideas to the rest of the team, so that the goal can be achieved.

Minefield 

Minefield is an ideal game to improve the communication skills of your employees and teach them how to work together effectively. One team member has to go through a minefield, blindfolded, by following the commands and direction of another team member. 

Human Knot 

This team building activity is designed to increase effective communication and cooperation between people, while also polishing up their time management and problem solving skills. 

Scavenger Hunt 

Seems basic but this one is a classic team building activity. A scavenger hunt is an excellent game to find out which employees are built for roles like time leaders. It unveils those who take initiative and also helps you figure out those who are most creative, who use out-of-the-box thinking, and who is good at following someone else’s lead. 

Cultivating a positive workplace culture takes some time and intentionality, but the results of that positive culture pay dividends that can’t be beat.