Your company’s culture should always be a priority. What your organization values and cultivates will influence your employees and your customers. If you believe your current culture is struggling, here are a few simple ways to improve it.
Value Employee Autonomy
Giving your employees autonomy is an easy and effective way to improve your company’s culture. When your team members feel like they’re in charge and trusted to do their jobs, their job satisfaction increases. With Bright Pattern’s call center software, you can give your employee’s autonomy without being ignorant of their work. Skills-based routing connects each customer with the agent who will best address his or her needs. The system can also connect a caller to the agent he or she previously worked with. Both of these features give your employees the chance to excel without you having to micromanage.
The software’s quality assurance system also gives you a way to monitor the interactions and address any needs. You can look at the data later and give feedback to your agents based on their work. Let your employees handle their day-to-day conversations. You can keep an eye on the big picture and provide training when needed. Your employees will feel valued and trusted when you provide them with opportunities to be autonomous.
Cultivate a Team Atmosphere
A team atmosphere will give your employees a united cause and a stake in the work they’re doing. You can cultivate this atmosphere by working with your employees to establish goals. The goals should be achievable since they will provide team members with confidence and forward momentum. Take time to celebrate the team’s successes and establish new goals when needed. You should also use each employee’s strengths to the team’s benefit. Know where your team members excel and create opportunities for each one to succeed. If you know your staff member is great with sales, ask them to lead a workshop. Cultivate a team atmosphere by really creating a team within your office.
You should also make sure each team member has the tools he or she needs to succeed. Accountant supplies should be high-quality and always accessible to your payroll department. Give each sales member his or her own business cards to be passed out on sales calls. Post a calendar of team members’ birthdays in the break room. Keep each employee well-stocked with what he or she needs to succeed, and do little things to cultivate the team atmosphere.
Give and Receive Regular Feedback
People can’t grow if they aren’t receiving regular feedback. As the manager, it’s your job to provide your team with consistent commentary on their work. When you give feedback, make sure you’re giving positive comments as well as critiques. You can even use the sandwich method with your team members—giving them notes on what they can improve on in between two comments on where they excel. People want to hear that they are mostly succeeding, so if you make it clear that they are doing well overall they will be more likely to hear and understand the critical feedback.
Your critiquing comments should always be actionable. Your team members can’t improve if you only ever say: “You’re not doing well this quarter.” Instead, try saying something like: “I noticed you tend not to land sales in the health field. Why do you think that is?” This feedback gives you a specific area on which to focus, and it provides the employee with the opportunity to reflect on his or her work. Don’t forget about yourself when considering feedback. You should also receive feedback from your employees and try to improve as well. Consider providing your team with training on how to give feedback and give them frequent opportunities to critique your performance.
A company culture of honesty and trust only comes from hard work. Allow your team members to be independent, create a team atmosphere, and always give and receive feedback. If you do these simple things, your company will be a better place to work.
