While many business owners focus on growth, few are focusing on fostering a winning culture. Your company’s culture will strongly dictate how successful your business will be in the long-term. 

From there, you can make adjustments to positively influence your working environment. A company’s culture shares values and goals, including how employees work together, policies, procedures, and the decision-making process within the company. 

In order to foster a winning culture in your new business, we’ll dive deeper into learning more about the 10 tips you can follow to make it happen. 

1. Ask yourself what an ideal winning company culture would look like to you 

The first step in building a strong company culture is to define what it looks like to you. You have to spend enough time in the planning phase, especially if you are trying to build a winning culture in your company. Your team is concerned about why your company exists and what makes it special from the others. 

It’s always better to first determine the company culture that will work best for your organization instead of trying to change it later on. 

2. Learn more about what motivates your employees 

If you want your employees to be happy, and feel accomplished, you need to listen to their needs and understand what are the factors that drive them. Establish one-on-one meetings with them, and see what worries them and makes them feel good. 

A well-established company culture starts from the moment you show your team that you care about their dreams and necessities as well, instead of seeing them only as employees. This will give you more hints on what your company culture should look like, and what points you need to cover. 

3. Lead by example 

Your team is going to always look for guidance, so it’s important you are a good example. For example, if you want to see good behavior or how to be successful at work, you need to be the one to show it first. It’s never enough to tell your team that you need to collaborate, but show them how to be collaborative. 

In other words, you need to be a role model and establish a culture of honest and open communication where feedback is encouraged. Leaders always listen first to their team's concerns and ideas, so by being an example, your team will always see you as a positive influencer and follow your steps. 

4. Encourage a work-life balance culture 

60% of worldwide employees claim to be stressed at the workplace. It’s nearly impossible to avoid at least some level of stress, but when the amount gets too high, it may harm your physical and mental health, including job satisfaction. 

Employees that take care of their mental and physical health are always going to be more productive. However, you can always have a positive impact on how they feel by doing the following: 

1. Encourage employees to take vacations when needed. 
2. Offer mental health care benefits. Always make sure that employees have an available option and know how to access resources when needed. 
3. Create an open-door policy. This allows employees to know how they can approach others for any important discussions. 
4. Encourage your employees to take breaks when needed. This can be anything from drinking a coffee, taking a short walk, or anything else. 

Humans are not machines that can work all the time, so you must teach your employees to take a step back when they need to and enjoy the moment. 

5. Focus on potential, not only credentials when hiring new people 

It’s always important to prioritize the potential a candidate has. However, even though skills and experience are highly important, you can’t ever replace a team member who has the potential to grow. 

Fostering a winning company culture means hiring people who want the business to grow just like you do. Therefore, recruiters should carefully focus on the candidate's potential and pay close attention to soft skills. 

6. Discourage competitiveness between team members 

While competition is healthy, it doesn’t always mean it’s the right path to follow. You are here to help your team, not compete against them, so it’s always important to discourage competition between team members. 

For instance, if any team member can find a new way to do a task better, it’s best if they share it with everyone and not keep it to themselves. Environments that only reward individual achievements might not be good since they can make others feel left out. 

Also, employees keeping ideas to themselves and trying to gain a competitive advantage isn’t a good idea either, so this is important to clarify from the beginning that you discourage this kind of behavior. 

7. Recognize good work 

71% of employees who are highly engaged are recognized by employers for their hard work. Employees differ in how they process information, some learn more slowly, while others might learn at a faster pace. 

To establish a healthy company working culture, it’s always important that you recognize good work. To make everything easier, create a recognition program. Employees can be recognized in different ways: 

1. Peer-to-peer recognition: This is recognizing employees for their outstanding work or teamwork. Always go up to your team members individually and tell them how good of a job they did. 
2. On-spot bonuses: These include monetary rewards for good work. Some good examples are gift cards, event tickets, free dinner/lunch, cash bonuses, etc. 
3. Client feedback: When a client is happy, everybody is happy. Positive client feedback should be shared with team members. Positive client feedback rewards differ like writing a thank-you note, gift card, providing internal recognition, or something else you have to offer. 
4. Wellness recognition: These kinds of recognitions are good for physical health, so they can either be a gym membership, fitness tracker, or extra time off throughout the year. 
5. Social media shout-outs: Public shouts or even digital badges, possibly even including short bios. 

Good work should always be recognized, but not just that, even when employees are trying their best, it’s never a bad idea to tell them that you are there to support them. 

8. Promote work autonomy 

Work flexibility is the key to fostering a winning company culture. Flexible schedules are more popular options for those that work remotely, but many office jobs are starting to implement it as well. 

Depending on what business you are running, we have to admit that many industries are shifting to remote work, or incorporating a hybrid working schedule. 16% of worldwide companies are working remotely, and only 44% don’t allow remote work. This means that many are starting to promote work autonomy. 

The concept of work autonomy brings freedom to employees and allows them to structure their day the way they find it best fit. 73% of employees claim that flexible schedules improve their work satisfaction. 

9. Maintain healthy communication 

It’s always important to maintain healthy communication with all of your team members. Find time for everyone when they need your help, and don’t let anyone feel like they’ve missed out on something. 

Did you know that 86% of employees and executives have a lack of collaboration and communication, which is a driving factor of company failure over time? However, team members who maintain healthy communication will show an increase in productivity by 25%. 

10. Always be open to feedback 

Feedback from team members is something you should never disregard. You are on the same team for a reason, and the only way to have a winning company culture is to make sure you are respecting everyone’s opinion. 

To make your team members feel valued, tell them to join your decision-making process. Nevertheless, you never know, one of your team members might be the reason you implement a good idea that will positively impact your business in the long-term. 

It’s now time to foster a winning company culture 

Now that you’ve learned the ten tips on how to foster a winning company culture, it’s time to put all of these steps into action. Company cultures are what take a business far and what motivate employees to be the best they can be and entirely contribute to the company. 

By focusing on these tips, you can create a company culture that encourages employees to feel motivated, valued, and connected to your business. A strong culture also not only attracts top talents, but increases performance levels and helps your business grow in the long-term.