A construction manager is always looking at ways to reduce employee turnover, boost team morale and engagement, and improve productivity and overall business performance. But how can it be done? What’s the answer? Creating a great company culture is the key to success. While this is true for any industry, it’s often pushed aside in the construction industry. However, without a healthy and fun company culture, you ultimately run the risk of your employees leaving or working less productively, which hurts your bottom line.
Now, creating a lasting and solid company culture isn’t a task you can cross off once a quarter or just pin on the bulletin board of the construction site. Instead, your company culture should be regularly applied and refined.
Here’s how you can start:
1. Hire the right people
When you’re hiring someone new to join the team, it isn’t enough to just look at their skills or qualifications. This person will have a direct impact on your company culture. Think of it like this: If your company culture is huge on teamwork but the new hire is a total lone wolf who is set in his or her ways, then the company culture will ultimately be disrupted. And not in a good way.
Therefore, ensure your hiring process directly compliments your company culture:
a. Candidates should appreciate your company culture
It’s easier to have everyone working towards the same goal if they’re aligned with the company culture.
b. Optimize your interview process
Even if you have an amazing interviewer, you can never know enough about a candidate in just an hour. Having a team of interviewers that cover many different areas is ideal, such as experience, skills, cultural fit, and more. As different interviewers ask questions, they digest the answers so that when everyone comes together, they get the full picture in order to best understand the candidate. Ask these questions to gauge the candidate.
c. Look at attitude
Sure, hiring someone who is available to do the job “right now” is easy and maybe they need little training. Typically, when you hire like this, the new candidate has an immediate impact on the company but they don’t usually grow within the company and this ultimately leads to a higher turnover rate. You will have better success if you hire someone who doesn’t actually have all the skills required but does fit the company culture and is excited to learn and grow. An excited hire who is interested in developing within the company positively impacts engagement and the company culture.
d. Avoid “mini-me”s
When hiring a new employee to really fit the company culture, make sure they’re unique. Don’t hire someone because of what you think they should look like, think like, or even act like. Hiring someone who is just like you and everyone else on your team only spells disaster. Instead, look to bring someone who can enhance and diversify the company culture.
To really attract potential employees who can take your company culture to the next level, start by refining your hiring process to reflect that.
2. Don’t start from scratch
Chances are, you already have some kind of company culture in place. That’s great! Don’t think you need to throw away what you already have. Instead, enhance your current company culture. Your employees, and even management, can’t be expected to make a total 180. Talk to your employees about what they like about the company culture and what isn’t working, and ask if they have any suggestions on how to improve the company culture.
3. Listen to your employees and keep them in the loop
According to CultureIQ, “Employees’ overall ratings of their company’s qualities — like collaboration, work environment, and mission and value alignment — are 20% higher at companies with strong cultures. These qualities help winning cultures keep employees aligned and motivated.”
On top of that, in the same survey, “86% of employees felt senior management listened to them in a strong cultural environment.”
You must listen to your employees and create a platform where their voices are heard. Ask for feedback often. As long as you’re listening and acting on what your team says, you’re building that company culture in a positive direction.
Connecteam is a free employee management app that helps you take communication to the next level. With a push of a button, it’s that much easier to:
- Share company news, updates, and documents and instantly get feedback with comments and likes
- Perform real-time collaboration with a group chat or private dialogue
- Add content, share files, animated videos, and pictures
- Facilitate two-way communication and boost employee engagement, morale and productivity
- Create a directory for work contacts
- Designate an in-app suggestion box
- Send push notifications to make sure everyone gets the message
Use Connecteam to create a work environment where your employees are heard.
4. Talk about your company culture
Your company’s culture, vision, goals, and values are not only for upper management but for every single employee. A huge reason some contractors struggle to create a great company culture is because they never talk about their company vision and values with every employee. The “mission statement” is often tucked away in an employee handbook or just a business card, that’s fine but if you really want to effectively engage your team, you need to TALK about what makes your company culture. As your team talks about how they can live up to the company’s vision, goals, and values then you will see them putting out a greater, more productive effort.
5. Recognize employees who exemplify the company culture
It’s not enough to just talk about your company culture, recognize the employees who talk the talk and walk the talk. A simple “thank you” or “great job!” can go a long way. As long as you’re consistent and proactive, your employees will continue to exemplify the company culture. For example, give a huge shout out to the foreman who won over an angry customer or took a new hire under their wing without being asked.
Recognize and reward these efforts!
Gallup reported that you should praise an employee at least once a week. “Variation in response to this question is responsible for a 10% to 20% difference in revenue and productivity. Employees who report that they’re not adequately recognized at work are three times more likely to say they’ll quit in the next year.”
We aren’t saying you need to issue a pay raise or promotion each and every time. Instead, make your employees feel appreciated just by acknowledging their hard work in front of their peers, buying them lunch, etc.
Start building and revamping your company culture today
While creating a strong, healthy company culture is not the easiest task, it does have huge returns you’ll appreciate when it’s done right. Start taking the steps we outlined above to develop an amazing company culture. You’ll be so glad that you did.
This is a guest post from the company behind Connecteam, an employee management app.
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