Creating a Fitness Plan for Your Company’s Culture

Entrepreneurs invest a lot in the health and well-being of their companies. From employee benefits and healthcare options to countless hours spent attending to the wellness of the bottom line, a thousand different things clamor for the attention of savvy owners and managers. Top leaders at companies including Adobe, REI, and Twitter understand the benefits of promoting a healthy and positive company culture.

According to an infographic from Pepperdine University, benefits can include doubling productivity in the space of just two years. Taking the right steps to keep your company’s culture in peak condition ensures the organization is ready to outperform the competition.

The Drive to Succeed
Change starts at the top, and your management team needs the drive to succeed if you’re to make real improvements to company culture. Top managers possess the virtues of leadership and resourcefulness, traits essential for growth in any business. Leaders want their workplaces to deliver fulfilling and engaging experiences, but not all managers understand how to get there. Understanding the benefits of positive culture is essential for a leadership team to get behind any plan for change.

Take the time to identify areas where your company may not be reaching its peak potential. Managers should understand exactly what goals the fitness plan seeks to achieve and how employees can help attain those goals. Leaders can truly transform a workplace when they pair the knowledge gained from careful and precise evaluation with the drive to make real changes at all levels. Create a written plan for success, with clearly defined goals, and seek employee input before putting it in place.

Daily Workouts and Regular Checkups
Employees need to be on board for improvements to company culture. Change may begin at the top, but the muscles for development lie in the day-to-day operations of your workforce. Employees who understand the purpose and potential of this shift in culture drive others and keep everyone working towards the same goals.

Daily reminders of cultural goals and values can come in the form of morning emails and newsletter updates or pep talks and quick notes of appreciation. Day-to-day interactions provide leadership a chance to live the changes and demonstrate them for employees. Taking this type of active role is crucial for the success of the fitness plan.

The best times for regular checkups on employee culture come during performance reviews. Regular performance reviews give managers more than a chance to evaluate individual metrics, they also provide a safe space for examining cultural fitness. Take advantage of these key one-on-one moments to ensure employees are engaged. Address any concerns that might be working against your company’s culture goals.

Even employees at the top of their game benefit from this type of review. Honest feedback and regular reviews are like tracking weight loss and muscle development; they deliver the key metrics for cultural fitness.

Get Fit and Stay Fit
Sticking with any fitness plan is the ultimate key to success. The relationships you create with engaged employees and the strength of their loyalty gives your organization the stamina it needs to get fit and maintain peak performance. Achieving cultural goals drives leaders to spur on further success and growth as a company. This becomes an upward spiral of success over time.

Growth is essential to business, and the fierce competition of the business world demands that everyone involved in your fitness plan strives for continual improvement. Competition kills complacency, and companies with a fit and healthy culture find that it drives the innovation needed to keep things moving at the speed of business.