Tag: employee engagement

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Steps To Building A Positive Company Culture

company culture, workplace culture

After years of research, renowned psychologists and leaders compiled enough data to determine that a positive workplace culture is the bedrock of a successful business. It’s understood that a culture that supports employees’ growth as well as values them is imperative in today’s job market. Company culture reaches far beyond the behavior of its employees; it’s more about how people interact and function within an organization when no one is watching. In this blog post we discuss six steps to help your business build a positive company culture.

1. Set Clear Expectations

What are some of the ideal characteristics that you want to incorporate into the current company culture? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach; each company will be different based on the organization’s priorities. Developing policies and procedures around new ideas can help you get started.

2. Establish Trust

Most effective leaders know that creating a healthy work culture requires establishing trust with employees from the outset. Motivating employees to improve using honest lines of communication goes a long way. Aligning your behavior with company values will naturally reflect a top-down leadership role. Keep in mind that trust is earned over time and takes consistent effort.  Begin by determining your current workplace culture. As a leader, your perspective might be wildly different from your employee’s. It’s best to understand this from a broader perspective and invite an open discussion to help with the process. If you still face challenges, sometimes hiring a third-party consultant can offer some much-needed clarity.

3. Increase Employee Engagement

Employee engagement can be measured through quantitative factors such as loyalty, emotions and satisfaction. A recent Gallup poll notes there is a direct correlation between low engagement, high turnover and poor performance. Improving engagement helps companies outshine their competition. Creating a productive and inclusive company culture is more vital than ever. 


Take Google for instance; they employ thousands of people a year. Google sets the bar high when it comes to company culture and they track employee happiness through an annual survey on culture, salary, managers and career opportunities. Creating a positive environment where everyone feels included and important is no easy task, but when done well, every individual feels that they’re working toward something bigger than themselves.

4. Focus On Learning

A culture of continuous learning can be pivotal for keeping employees engaged. By allowing your employees to develop certain skills, you express a commitment to their development and prepare them for greater responsibilities. Scheduling one-on-one meetings or check-ins with workers to offer feedback is a reliable resource and a motivator for employees. By encouraging them to accept the idea of continuous learning, they are more likely to make valuable contributions.

5. Conduct Employee Surveys

Feedback surveys can provide valuable information as to why employees leave an organization. It’s possible that the poor performance lies with them; it’s also possible that there’s an undercurrent of dysfunction that you’re not aware of. Until you begin performing exit interviews or conducting surveys, it’s likely you’ll remain in the dark. In addition to manual surveys and check-ins, there are quite a few employee engagement tools that can offer assistance. One resource available is TINYpulse. This tool enables businesses to customize surveys and even generate analytics based on the results.

6. Set The Tone During The Onboarding Process

Sharing your company culture with employees from the beginning allows them to manage expectations and understand their role and the roles of those around them. Many organizations adopt onboarding across all departments so that workers don’t feel siloed. It’s also essential to involve new hires in team meetings from the outset. All of these strategies send a clear message to your employees that they’re part of something bigger —a part of the team. Of course, being warm and welcoming goes a long way too. 

There are also a lot of third-party resources, known as collaboration software, to welcome new hires. If this isn’t an option, you can develop your own checklist for employees to get better acquainted with the company. The principle here is to give people ample tools to feel supported and comfortable along the way.

The various constituents that make up company culture can be as narrow or broad as a company envisions. Determining how to engage employees is a win-win for workers and managers alike.

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Effective Ways To Successfully Market Yourself For Potential Job Opportunities

market yourself, job opportunities

Knowing How To Create Your Individual Brand

Knowing how to market your brand seems like something that’s only necessary when you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, however this practice is becoming more common as of late. Spurred on by the advancement of technology, people want a competitive edge and know it’s essential to stand out in order to achieve this. Knowing how to accomplish this strategy is key. Here are some helpful tools to get you on your way.

Begin with setting achievable goals and keep reasonable expectations in mind. It could be something as simple as increasing your social media presence or creating awareness for your small business. What are you trying to accomplish? Is it to become more attractive to potential employers? Be sure to brainstorm all of your thoughts and narrow them down to no more than three goals. This will provide you with a helpful framework for your personal brand and keep you from getting sidetracked.

Identify Target Markets

Next, it’s important to identify your unique sales proposition (USP); what do you have to offer? Combining your niche market with your passion will provide more focus while you’re developing your individual brand. If you stray too far from your personal niche, you risk diluting your efforts and slowing the process. However, once your individual brand is established, then you can begin to dip your toe in more unfamiliar territory. But don’t stray too far from your target market.

Who would benefit from seeing your content? What are the demographics and interests of your target market? For instance, if your personal niche is web design and SEO, then you’re likely going to target people who are interested in marketing and web design. Find out where they’re networking and whether they are attending business conferences or symposiums. Make it a point to attend the same conference and start networking. Identifying your target market is worth the effort and should be done methodically and thoughtfully.

Use A Website To Tell Your Brand’s Story

Another way to put your brand out there is to create a personal website. Featuring an online portfolio helps potential employers see the quality of your work. A website can offer more granular detail, allowing the employer to uncover more information about you than a resume. It’s also a unique opportunity to reveal your brand’s personality. Having an industry-specific blog on your website also showcases a breadth of knowledge and experience.

Attracting Your Target Audience

Always strive to write engaging and useful information that people are interested in and want to interact with. This will carry a lot of momentum for attracting your target audience and gaining their trust. Be sure to include a detailed biography in the “about” section of your website. Write a summary of your bio and include it on each one of your social channels. Your biography can include your history, goals, accomplishments, professional affiliations and hobbies.

Create your social media presence and curate content for each social channel. Posting on Facebook or Instagram is more casual and can amplify your brand expression. Whereas, posting on LinkedIn demands a more professional tone and more serious content.

Networking Is Important To Showcase Your Brand

Attend business conferences to develop relationships with other people in your industry. Networking is a key component for expanding your contacts and a great way to build your reputation. It also gets you in front of people looking for the type of content and insights you provide. If business conferences aren’t an option, social media is the perfect place to showcase your brand, build rapport with industry leaders, collaborate and become a part of that online community.

Using A Content Calendar For Your Brand

Now that you’ve established a core strategy for marketing your individual brand or business, it’s vital that you stay active with the process. Posting content to your website and social media is necessary to remain top of mind with your existing audience and will serve to attract new followers to your brand.

Create a schedule of your actions with specific and measurable goals. Using a content calendar can be a tremendous help when it comes to consistency. They should be flexible and be updated as you evaluate your results. Highlighting posts or blogs that received favorable responses can help you determine the type of content to expand on as you move forward.

We’ve covered a lot of effective methods to help with your brand expression. Remember to be authentic when curating content for your website and social media. Your personal brand will have a lot more influence when you’re able to showcase your personality, values and mission.

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Incentives Or Ownership: How to Best Motivate Your Team In 2022

Team motivation is important for success.

Team motivation is essential to a well-running organization. Whether you work in retail, education, health or any other field, team members motivated to perform to their highest potential are a cornerstone ingredient of any successful company. How can aspiring managers effectively inspire team members? Here are some helpful hints for cultivating a motivated team atmosphere.

Offer Educational Opportunities To Inspire Team Motivation

Providing educational opportunities is an effective way to encourage employees and offer options for team members to grow. Encouraging further growth allows each employee to invest in their own future while empowering each individual to strengthen their skills. Presenting paths for further development is a powerful incentive to motivate your team.

Encourage Employees With Leadership Opportunities

Everyone wants to feel valued. By providing pathways for leadership development, organizations inspire employees to take greater responsibility in their workplace environment. Offering opportunities for leadership development shows employees they are valued and that their contributions to the organization are noticed.

Motivate Employees By Prioritizing Work-Life Balance

Burnout is one of the greatest threats to a motivated team environment. Burnout happens when employees feel overwhelmingly stressed with their workload. To ensure employee satisfaction, engender a company culture that promotes a work-life balance. Employees will feel more motivated to work when they aren’t entirely exhausted by what they do. To create a strong work-life environment, make sure your employees have a manageable workload, clearly defined expectations and effective support from supervisors.

Raise Team Member Morale By Implementing An Incentive Program

Employee incentive programs are an effective tool to target team motivation in a positive way. These programs are powerful ways to reward employees for their efforts. According to the Incentive Research Foundation, a study found that incentive programs increase employee performance by as much as 44%. A few types of incentive programs are points-based recognition, social recognition and tuition reimbursement.

Encourage Ownership To Motivate Team Members

Want to further improve team morale? Encourage employees to take ownership of their work! Studies show work autonomy significantly raises employee satisfaction. In other words, employees are happier when they feel empowered to make meaningful choices. Allowing employees the freedom to work the way they prefer as long as they get the job done is a powerful way to motivate your team.

To Empower Ownership And Inspire Team Members, Explain Why The Work Matters

Everyone wants to feel their work makes a difference. To inspire your team to take proactive action, explain why their work is important. How do their duties contribute to the overall success of the company’s vision? By thoroughly showing our employees that their work matters, we motivate team members to take responsibility for their own piece of the puzzle.

Want A More Motivated Team? Ask For Feedback

Listening and responding to feedback is a powerful method to motivate a team. Show the team that leaders listen by gracefully accepting feedback from your employees. What works? What doesn’t? Is the team satisfied with the implemented incentive reward program, and why or why not? Are team members satisfied with the work-life balance?

Opportunities for feedback allow employees to feel heard and to provide work-changing ideas that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. Furthermore, team members feel valued when they can see their feedback makes a difference in the workplace.

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How To Give Constructive Employee Feedback With Care

Nobody likes giving an employee negative feedback and, unless everything is going perfectly, giving constructive criticism can be pretty rough on both the employer and the team member. Unfortunately, ignoring problems and hoping they’ll just disappear will be worse in the long run.

The good news is there are a few key tips that can help make the review process fairly painless for you and the employee, and likely to yield tangible results.

Set The Stage For Sharing Employee Feedback

Here are a few things you can do to help the initial sit-down go smoothly.

Avoid Surprises

A meeting without notice can cause an employee to feel intimidated and put them on the defensive when you provide feedback. Schedule the meeting ahead of time and let them know what you want to talk about. This will give the employee some notice and time to prepare.

Keep It Private

Don’t provide individual employee feedback in a group setting. Constructive criticism should be given privately so that an employee doesn’t feel singled out. Public and rushed feedback can quickly devolve into destructive criticism.

Make Sure Your Employee Feedback Is Effective

Giving employee feedback is useless if you don’t present it to them in the right way. In order to make sure that improvements are easy to identify and follow-through on, consider these tips from LinkedIn.

Be Specific, Not General

Specific critiques are far more actionable than general employee feedback, and also easier to deal with. For example, don’t tell an employee they need to run their meetings more efficiently – that’s too broad. Instead, tell them to have an agenda sent out before each meeting and to stick to it.

Be Descriptive and Helpful, Not Evaluative and Punitive

Let’s say an employee turns in a report that has errors within it. If you’re in a rush you might be prone to criticize them for the errors and tell them it’s not up to standard. But taking a moment to be helpful can go a long way. Point out the errors and ask the employee how they might avoid them in the future. This turns criticism into a coaching session.

Own Your Feedback

Don’t give in to the temptation to pass the blame for the feedback to someone who isn’t in the room, or an unnamed force like “management.” Instead, stand behind your words and make it clear to the employee that they are yours by using phrases like, “That’s how I see it,” or “In my view.”

Address Issues, Not the Employee

Don’t tell an employee they are bad at a certain task. Instead, point out the specific errors they have made. There’s a psychological reason behind this. If you tell a team member they are “bad,” it reinforces a fixed mindset and makes it harder to move beyond.

Alternatively, openly discussing the errors and allowing a chance for them to be remedied reinforces a growth mindset and shows that the employee can excel at a task instead.

Employee Feedback Should Be a Dialogue, Not a Monologue

Consider opening your sessions with a question like, “How do you think the meeting went today?” This allows them to open up and share their thoughts, which will help you refine your employee feedback on the fly. 

The employee should also be given the chance to explain his or her reasoning behind their actions and ask their own questions about how to improve. Hearing their perspective can help you tailor your future feedback with them.

Recap at the End of the Meeting

Before the conversation is over, inquire about what the employee heard and give them a chance to tell you in their own words that the message was received.

Follow Up, Don’t Forget

You don’t want to give constructive employee feedback and then never bring up the issue again. Instead, make it a goal and track how the person is improving in that area so their weakness transforms into a strength. If your feedback was important enough to deliver, it’s important enough to follow up on.

Whether you’re an employer seeking out a new employee or a candidate seeking a new position, we want to help you succeed! Click here to check out our current job listings and contact us if you have any questions or are interested in applying.

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How To Increase Productivity At Work, No Matter Where You Work

Whether you’re preparing to enter a busy quarter, catching up on work or just trying to make the most of your day, there are always steps you can take to become more productive. Productivity at work may seem like an overwhelming topic, especially when everyone is inspired and motivated differently. So what are the easiest ways to stay on task through a long work day?

The methods to  increase productivity at work are not one-size-fits-all. There are numerous factors including the type of person you are, where you work and what your limitations are. For example, the suggestion to brighten your work space might not come so easily for those working from a cubicle in a corporate office. Read on to find a strategy or two that you can incorporate into your work day.

Tips For Staying Productive While Working In An Office

  1. Plan ahead. Get to your desk 15 minutes early and write out a list of tasks to get your work day started. Highlighting your top three tasks can also help you stay on track to accomplish your daily goals.
  2. Time chunk desirable tasks to help space out your day. Lori Lynn Smith, a Lifehack author, says that by shifting your focus between tedious and repetitive tasks and those that are more engaging, you can keep yourself happily involved in your work throughout the day. Give each task category a time frame and alternate back and forth between them for better productivity at work.
  3. Listen to music. Did you know that music can help you settle into your work routine? Low-volume music or a trusty set of earbuds can drown out noises in the office without interrupting your coworkers. Choose music that helps you focus without distracting you. It has been shown that while listening to classical music your IQ actually increases—you might want to give it a try!

Tips For Staying Productive While Working From Home

  1. Plan phone calls and meeting thoughtfully. Unless you live completely alone, you don’t want to have loud children or a barking dog in the background of your conference call. Not only is it unprofessional, but you might miss something important while trying to silence those around you. Plan your calls according to the daily hustle and bustle of your home.  
  2. Have a designated office space, even if you don’t have a private room for it. Having an office space can increase your productivity at work. Productivity Writer and Author Kayla Matthewssays that this will help put you in “work” mode, as well as prevent you from seeing things that might distract you, like that pile of dirty dishes you ignored last night or a hamper full of clean clothes waiting to be folded. Giving yourself a designated space often means a higher rate of productivity at work.

Whether you work from home or in an office, increasing productivity at work doesn’t have to be a challenge. 

For more recommendations on increasing productivity at work, read additional articles on our blog today! Or, if you’re looking for a new position, see our current job listings!

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5 Healthy Snacks That Will Increase Employee Engagement

Remaining consistent in healthy eating habits while at work can seem like a second job! With all of the time, energy and planning that goes into preparing healthy snacks, hitting a drive-thru can seem like the easier option. Although opting for convenience may sometimes feel like the better choice, after eating a high carb meal energy and productivity levels pay the price. By keeping healthy snacks on hand in the break room, you and your employees will be able to conveniently stay on track and on task. 

By keeping healthy snacks at the office, you will likely notice an increase in employee engagement and productivity. Here are 5 easy healthy snacks that can be left out for your staff to enjoy throughout the day.

1. Dried Fruit and Nuts

Nuts and dried fruit make for a healthy, non-perishable snack mix. This filling combination has an outstanding balance of all three macronutrients, with healthy fats and protein from nuts and good carbs from dried fruit. Both of these snacks are loaded with fiber, which will leave your team feeling full between meals. By keeping your staff’s carbohydrate intake low, you will likely see a jump in employee engagement.

2. Greek Yogurt with Granola or Fruit

It’s sometimes difficult to peer into the fridge and look past what could be a delicious, but energy draining snack and opt for the Greek yogurt instead. But by offering a healthy alternative, you give your staff the chance to choose a snack high in protein and calcium. If you keep granola and fresh fruit on hand, employees can customize their Greek yogurt even more, too! There are numerous options for different types of granola, meaning each day they can incorporate a different flavor into their plain Greek yogurt.

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4 Easy Office Decor Tricks That Will Boost Employee Engagement

Do you enjoy what you see when you gaze around your office? How about your employees? Is their work space reflective of who they are and what they do? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, it might be time to think about adding some inspiring decor that will not only please the eye but will boost employee engagement. Bring on the plants, colors and natural light, your staff may need it more than you realize. 


Kelly Weimert at The Spruce explains, “There are several incredibly simple and economical decor tricks you can integrate into your office that will leave you and your employees feeling energized, inspired and motivated.” Whether your office is large or small, you can apply these tips to optimize your company’s employee engagement.

Decor Tricks to Boost Employee Engagement

1. Brand Your Work Space

When you look around your office space do you see your brand? Is your logo proudly displayed? Does the office theme match your mission? Is your team part of the branding? Your office is not only a representation of the business, but it also represents the employees and managers who occupy it. Frame a team picture, get your employees branded coffee mugs, etc. Do whatever is in your means to let your employees and guests know that this is an inclusive space.

2. Maximize Lighting

Soft, natural light is inspiring and will increase employee engagement more than many other strategies. Find ways to incorporate natural light into your space, rather than the typical harsh, bright lights you usually find in offices. If your team is looking at their computer screens all day, the softer light will help them to not strain their eyes, resulting in a healthier staff and more consistent productivity.

3. Add Inspiring Greenery

According to researcher Lewis Humphries at Lifehack.org, studies show that the presence of plants in the workplace can significantly reduce stress and blood pressure. It was also revealed that workers surrounded by plants were able to complete computer-based tasks with a reaction time that was 12 percent faster than alternative test groups. The research also suggests that the process of tending to potted plants can help improve focus over the course of a typical working day, increasing the concentration and attention to detail in the process. Not only will adding greenery to your work space improve employee engagement and decrease staff stress, but the plants also purify the air and provide opportunities to customize and enhance your interior with decorative pots and vases.

4. Get Organized

Do you have an office organizational system for files and important documents that your employees need access to? Organization is not only a time and frustration saver, it can also be aesthetically pleasing, resulting in higher employee engagement. Browse fun websites like The Container Store to get inspired and let your creativity flow!

While decorating adds a few touches of beauty to a space, it also benefits the company in multiple ways. Take a look around your office to see where you can easily implement the above tips; they will inspire your staff and improve employee engagement overall.For more recommendations on increasing employee engagement, read additional articles on our blog today! Or, if you’re looking for a new position, see our current job listings!