Employee engagement is the pillar of a strong business and the key to skyrocketing the organization’s profit, productivity, and overall success.

Unfortunately, though, most companies are failing incredibly in building and fostering a healthy and inviting company culture, thus diminishing employee motivation and engagement within the organization.

But why is company culture such an important part of any business? How is it associated with employee engagement? And how can you build a healthy workplace culture in your organization?

Let’s find out:

What Defines a Company’s Culture?

When we think about workplace culture, it’s important to define what we mean. Yet, it is hard to pin down. Are they a collection of values? Behaviors? Attitudes? Or traditions and customs? Turns out, it’s all of these things and more.

Forbes describes company culture as “the environment that surrounds us all the time.”

Culture involves collective knowledge and achievements, such as customs of behavior, art, religion, music, food, and language as a social construct. The culture of society shapes the values and beliefs of its members, and company culture is no different.

Essentially, it is a set of beliefs, values, attitudes, standards, objectives, and behaviors that people working in the organization share.

Company Culture is an expression of an organization’s work, its values, and the conduct of its workers. It’s similar to the development of small societies within a larger community.

What is Employee Engagement?

Many leaders mistakenly believe that employee engagement surveys alone can solve their organizational problems. Still, decades of research have shown that improving overall company culture is a far more effective method of improving business outcomes and propelling growth.

So what is employee engagement? 

Employee engagement is how employees feel about the company culture. Companies with strong cultures can better communicate with their employees about what is expected of them.

The more engaged your employees are, the more likely they will continue working for your company. Overall, an engaged employee is more:

• Creative in solving problems
• Motivated to exceed their goals
• Connected to your company’s mission
• Positive in their approach to work
• Proactive about starting new projects and learning new skills

Why is Company Culture Vital for Employee Engagement?

A strong company culture is imperative to your organization’s foundations. Nurturing one without focusing on the other or having a poor emphasis on both highlights fundamental breakdowns in behavior and belief and unengaged employees across the board.

As underlined by Deloitte Review, an organization that actively manages its culture usually has 30 percent higher levels of innovation and 40 percent higher retention rates.

Furthermore, a Gallup employee engagement assessment uncovered that companies with a highly-engaged workforce lead their establishment ahead of their competitors by 147% in earning per share, whereas 87% of the employees are less likely to quit the organization.

The formula is simple: The stronger a company’s culture, the higher the employee engagement.

More engaged employees result in higher annual turnover, increased work motivation, better customer relations, and stronger commitment towards the company’s growth and success.

In a nutshell, employee engagement is the direct outcome of empowering and well-built company culture.

What can leaders do to improve employee engagement?

In today’s fast-paced, seemingly around-the-clock workplace, a strong company culture and employee engagement are no more confined to the walls of an organization.

To recruit the best talents and achieve your company’s goals and objectives, your organization’s culture must also focus on your employees’ quality of life, work-life balance, social and financial well-being, and mental and physical health.

As a leader, what can you do to improve your team’s engagement? Below are some tips for building and maintaining a high-performing and engaged workplace culture:

Align Your Company Culture with Values

The role of company culture and value in employee engagement is often overlooked.

Think of it this way – employee engagement reflects how committed an employee is to the company they work for. Engaged employees are emotionally connected to the organization, and their devotion to the company extends beyond just a paycheck.

However, an organization without a clear set of values will find it difficult to instill this feeling in its employees. In a company survey, 75% of respondents stated it’s very important to work for a company with clearly defined values and alignment with their company culture.

Unfortunately, companies that don’t live up to their values are too common.

So, how can you align company values with your company culture to boost employee engagement? Here are a few proven ways to achieve it:

• Involve all employee levels when drafting company values
• Cultivate purpose among your employees
• Value relationships in your organization
• Encourage collaboration based on clearly defined values
• Express how company core values and culture relate to work ethics

For example, one of the key Viva values that help us cultivate purpose among our employees and encourage better and clear collaborations is:

Idea meritocracy: Leave our egos at the door aside will allow us to maximize how much we learn from each other and let the best ideas “win.” We each have our strengths and weaknesses, let’s optimize team performance by recognizing them.

In a nutshell, aligning your core values with company culture is the secret ingredient to a more motivated and engaged workforce.

Take Care of Your Employees

Employees are the building block of any organization. Therefore, make sure your employees don’t feel left out or dissatisfied with the company.

Actively listen to them, communicate more to understand their needs, and support them. Provide your workers with the best employee retention programs you can.

At Viva, we believe employees are our greatest assets. That’s why Viva’s values include:

• No surprises’ Mindset: operate with transparency by communicating internally and externally with unwavering candor, honesty, and respect. eg. we encourage transparent communication and discussing employees’ challenges proactively with the aim of finding the best solution as a team.
• The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts: Above all, we’re a team. That means we show up for each other, act with empathy, and bring our authentic selves to work every day.

When you care for your employees and help them grow, you build a team that wants your business to thrive and hit every milestone. 

Cause Marketing: Magnet for High-End Talent & Employee Engagement

According to Snapshot Employee Research, at least half of employees want their employers to offer opportunities for charitable engagement, and employees who get the chance to give to charities through their workplace are much happier than those who don’t.

Cause marketing gives employees a greater sense of meaning and satisfaction. The result is a lower employee turnover rate and better health for employees.

Thus, your organization’s commitment to a worthy cause that employees can embrace can be a key factor in achieving that high level of employee engagement.

For example, in the wake of the low women-employment rate in Latin America, we at Viva hire and train female executive assistants through a rigorous 8-week program to boost our clients’ productivity from day one.

Thus driven by the organization’s culture of women empowerment in the professional world, we successfully achieve higher employee engagement and work motivation alongside providing businesses with the best EA service from a company driven by a purpose.

Ready to optimize your time with a highly-skilled remote executive assistant?

Right Hiring

Your organization carries specific traits of employees and their understanding of corporate behavior and structure. Therefore, delegating a culture that goes hand in hand with your company’s mission, vision, and values is imperative.

This will help your establishment stand tall in the corporate crowd.

Include the culture of the organization in the hiring process. This can assist you in appointing the right employees who fit with the company’s ideologies. Hence, always hire people who fit into your company culture – one who believes in your shared vision and is ready to work towards it.

But What’s the ROI?

While HR professionals and C-Suite executives are constantly pushed to consider the bigger picture – earnings and ROI – we understand that you need to know why investing in employee engagement and company culture is worth the effort at the end of the day.

Consider this:

• 70 percent of American workers aren’t engaged at work.
• Almost half of working adults report that their jobs affect their overall health.
• Companies lose $30 billion in productivity due to sick days and absenteeism due to work-related stress.

With a focus on your employees’ wellbeing, you will witness increased revenue/ROI through increased productivity, improved engagement, lower absenteeism, and improved profitability.

On average, organizations that value culture and employee satisfaction achieve 516 percent higher revenue over ten years than those that do not.

Culture is an organization’s operating system, and it is high time for strategic human resource management leaders to set up and get this right once and for all.