What company culture says about your well-being?

Company culture is an interesting topic and can vary hugely between businesses and even industries. I attended an event yesterday where a company was asked what its company values were......no one knew the answer.

I thought back to a company I worked for years ago where the values were written on the wall, on the company screensaver and even in the toilets! We would laugh about them back then but at least we knew what the company actually wanted to stand for and what they expected of us. We also adhered to them without even realising.

A lot of people have remarked to me in the past that 'company values' don't matter anyway. That just sounds like bad culture to me and maybe there's an issue in there for employee engagement.

Company culture is the company norms. The values are usually a starting ground for that but they need to be followed and believed AT ALL LEVELS. That's the importance of culture and engagement. Employees need to buy-in to the values to develop a strong and positive company culture. Once you have that, you have engagement and people wanting to be part of the workplace.

One positive way to get buy-in is to not just add the usual values such as "integrity" or "responsibility" but also concentrate on well-being as well. The world of work needs to be a give and take exchange, a fair exchange.

I find employers quick to add that everyone can be replaced and that if you pay a salary the employee works for you. Well honestly - that belief and work culture is negative, damaging needs to disappear quite quickly if you want any hope of a successful, happy business.

People are replaceable but at a significant cost (any recruiter can tell you that!), then you have the training from scratch, the time it takes for those people to build working relationships up and down the organisation. Anyone that thinks a good employee is replaceable easily clearly doesn't know how to do business. Also thinking an employee works for you, gets paid and has no further needs doesn't understand fair exchange. You can pay a salary but in today's day and age where they are hundreds of jobs please don't become arrogant that you think an employee will just stay for money. Some will but it's never the good ones.

To be clear, well-being does not just mean table football, free lunch in the canteen and bean bag chairs. I have sat in many mindful sessions and even a session on sleep but when I then go back to 70 emails in my inbox I can assure you the so-called tick-box exercise has been a waste of the companies time and a waste of my time.

Wellness needs to be taken seriously. Values need to be taken seriously and only then culture will improve. Culture happens every day - every minute.

When wellness is added into the mix, the culture is one of support, guidance and genuine interest in the employees within the workplace. It has even been proven that when employees genuinely feel their company cares about their well-being they are significantly more engaged. Companies need to stop putting a sticky plaster over the issues hoping they will sort themselves out and start directing their budgets into more long term solutions. I don't think there is a one size fits all model but I do believe employees and management need to engage more and turn communication and engagement into part of the company culture.

Here are just three small ways your company culture can tap into employee well-being:

Align to the business goals

It has been proven that the best cultures thrive when theyre strategically aligned to the business goals. If you are interacting with clients - ensure you can provide the best service. If you want to expand across the globe get your employees on board - define your core goals and build a culture that truly supports it.

Speak to your employees

Management are usually so far removed from the company that I find even if you mention basic fundamental issues to senior management they look astounded! Conduct a survey and be open to the responses, there will be positives and negatives....if there are no negatives then maybe you need to get an independent body in. There is always room for improvement and you need your employees to be honest with you. If they feel can be open you build stronger trust and show the company is open to learning and maybe even change. You must act on what comes out of the survey though - positive company culture comes from listening.

Build well-being into the corporate values

Well-being links with engagement, so it really is a great place to start. When you build well-being into corporate policies like annual leave, into accepted norms like walking meetings with your manager, and into daily work life with tools and resources, you encourage employees to take care of themselves. Investing in your people will build strong engagement, they will enjoy coming into work a lot more and in turn will invest back in your business.

If you havent made culture a priority yet, you really need to before you fall behind. If you want to hire the best people you need to make it a place for them to want to work. The world is changing and with so many jobs and ways to make money out there you need to it's time to create a company culture that keeps employees engaged, inspires productivity and gives employees a purpose. Put your people first and you really will see a positive change.