The Culture Recipe for Success

A successful, productive and positive office culture isn’t something which is born out of nowhere. In fact, it takes a lot of hard work to create an office where everything just seems to click, with a whole host of ingredients making up the end product.

Boring offices, dull conversations and everyone running for the door as soon as the clock strikes 5pm are a thing of the past. Savvy start-ups realise a successful business is born out of a positive office culture resulting in a happier more productive workforce.

So, how can you take inspiration from the newbies on the scene? Start with the culture business basics and you’ll see your office go from strength to strength.

Designer Office

We spend the majority of our lives in the office, but that doesn’t mean we should be subjected to staring at a beige wall for our 9 to 5. The office not only reflects how your business looks to both employees and clients, but it can be a big motivating factor in keeping employees engaged and raring to go.

“The space you occupy speaks volumes, you want your clients to look forward to agency visits and feel the buzz”, comments David Dews Creative Director of Speed Agency.

Studies have found that blue and green in particular are great for boosting productivity, and standing desks are increasing in popularity too due to their energy boosting qualities. When it comes to break time, keep employees away from their desk and break the habit of a quick 5-minute sandwich being eaten desk side.

Break out areas are essential in getting employees away from their screen come 12pm. Gaming areas and quiet zones can prove instrumental in giving employees a break from staring at the screen.

Create a Social Calendar

The best tip for making sure employees click? Creating a social calendar of events. Amongst the day to day operations employees can become bogged down with work orientated chatter, so mix things up and get employees into a work social scene which doesn’t involved discussing clients and mundane day to day tasks.

Whether you favour the pub on a Friday afternoon, team lunches or create your own sports team, it’s the little perks which often boost staff relations. Dedicate someone to keep things in the diary and keep the office calendar full of social events.

Flexible Working

According to many surveys, employees would often rather have the opportunity to work flexibly than receive a pay rise. With how we work becoming increasingly digitalised and remote, we no longer need to be in the office to get the job done.

Allowing employees the flexibility to work from home whether that’s once a week or a couple of times a month can enable employees to feel more valued and enable them to manage their work/life balance effectively. Read up on the flexible working policy and if you are cautious, run it for a trial period and take a look at the results before you dive in head first.

Ideas from Everyone

It’s a bad habit to get into but once you allow ideas and policies to only be created by those in top level management, employees can soon feel undervalued and as if their voice doesn’t count. Don’t allow frustration to flow and allow everyone to be an equal when it comes to sharing ideas.

Keeping your company culture open will allow everyone to share ideas, whether it’s about culture, clients or workload. A problem shared, can be a problem halved, and those who have less involvement in the issue can sometimes come up with the best solutions.

Tear up the rule book and create an office culture which challenges outdated policies. Your employees will appreciate it and your business will reap the benefits too.