Culture Shock: Creating and Shaping Your Company Culture

Millennials are today’s largest age group in the U.S. workforce. For these young workers, a career has come to mean much more than tenure and a stable salary. Company values and culture are a major factor in where they choose to work.

These days, what happens inside the workplace when no one is looking is just as important as official business. That’s culture for you—a set of behaviors, values, and reward systems that your company is built upon. One feels it merely by setting foot inside an office space in Reston, VA, for example. It can be seen in the way people act and sometimes even in the way the space itself is designed.

There are many different types of office culture, but what you want is for it to be engaging. In its latest research, Gallup—an American management consulting company—reported that a mere 31% of employees feel engaged at work. A shocking 51% admit to being disengaged while 17.5% feel that they are actively disengaged from their jobs.

This disenchantment with work often leads to poor employee retention. So what’s an employer to do? Here are some pointers:

• Cultivate the right ethics. Keep your team engaged by encouraging a culture of prompt and honest feedback. Focus on solutions rather than getting stuck on who did what wrong. When you're dealing with young talent, try not to limit their independence. It works to put a premium on individual accountability as well.
• Encourage healthy workplace relationships. Not everyone needs to be best friends. What you really want is a team that is empathic of its members. After all, understanding what others are going through is the first step to building healthy relations. The better you and your people understand each other, the easier you can collaborate on projects and tasks.
• Allow more job flexibility. Sometimes, no matter how attractive the compensation, employees may not choose to stay if they feel restricted in terms of ideas, schedule, or location. If you can, try to grant your employees more freedom. You may be surprised by the improvement in their performance down the line.
• Reconsider your workspace. Nowadays, even offices are part of culture-building. Employees want great places to work in—literally. Not only are people looking for more workspace flexibility (a primary catalyst we’ve found for the rise of virtual office services in Reston, VA and at all our Metro DC locations), many are also drawn to amenities such as cafés, yoga/fitness centers, and lounges that help develop a sense of community among colleagues.

Metro Offices has been helping companies cultivate a more employee-friendly culture for years. Our flexible office spaces in Maryland, DC, and Virginia allow access to relevant technology to boost productivity, as well as top-of-the-line facilities to develop personal wellness.

Give us a call at (703) 871-5208 for more information on how we can help you.