Building a More Positive Team Culture Will Help Bolster Business Growth

Many factors go into a successful workplace. Even as things like remote work continue to redefine how workplaces operate, traditional elements such as teamwork and positivity remain at the center of success.

Let’s break down how positivity and teamwork can help cultivate a healthy company culture and, by extension, a more successful business. We’ll also take a look at a few actionable ways to begin cultivating a more positive team culture.

The Importance of Positivity in the Workplace

It’s no secret that positivity is a powerful motivator, even at work. A growing body of research is reinforcing the concept that positive workplaces can outperform stressful, high-pressure professional environments.

For instance, author Jessica Pryce-Jones, author of “Happiness at Work,” reported that, after asking 3,000 individuals, she found that happiness significantly impacted productivity. According to Pryce-Jones, happier workers were 50% more motivated and productive as well as 180% more energized and 108% more engaged.

In contrast, in more oppressive work settings, things like stress, disengagement, and a lack of loyalty perpetually eat at a business’s bottom line. These factors lead to distrust, errors, negative relationships, and lower productivity. Many of these are amongst the biggest reasons that many employees leave their employer, adding low retention rates into the list of concerns.

In an era defined by things like isolated remote work and dissatisfied workers resigning in droves, employers need to invest in creating happy, healthy, and positive workplace cultures for their teams to operate within. The question is, how can you do so effectively?

Ways to Build a More Positive Team Culture

While it’s easy to make the case for positivity in the workplace, actually encouraging it within your team can be a bit more difficult. However, if you consider your options and create a strategy, you can absolutely build a positive team culture. Here are a few suggestions for ways to get started.

Encourage Individualism

Many factors influence work culture. Age, education, geography, cultural values, social equity, and many other elements can distinctly set each member of your team apart.

Rather than looking for ways to ignore these differences, find healthy ways to steer into them. Look for nuanced ways to encourage individualism in each specific situation. By acknowledging and tapping into the differences within your team, you can help develop a unique sense of loyalty and respect from each clearly valued member.

Mental Health and Work-Life Balance

Exhaustion and overwhelm can quickly bury any signs of positivity for an individual. Even worse, the stress and anxiety can be contagious, extinguishing your team’s positivity and productivity in the process.

To avoid this, take steps to identify potential burn-out within your team. Are employees losing their passion? Are they struggling to stay focused or engaged? Are they acting isolated from their coworkers?

If you find that members of your team are acting burned out, take steps to help them address the issue. Let them take breaks, give them support, delegate some of their tasks to others, and generally allow them to restore a sense of work-life balance to their lives. This can do wonders in preserving mental health and helping both individuals and your team as a whole remain positive and invested in their work.

Communication

Communication is a key element of any successful team — and business, for that matter. While communication is often seen as a practical tool that keeps your team connected, it can also be used to bolster positivity.

For instance, use your established communication channels to encourage your team to collaborate. Create clearly defined places where they can talk and engage with one another.

It’s also wise to maintain open two-way lines of communication between leadership and employees. When a manager is available and actively listens to their employees, it can encourage them to remain engaged.

Appreciation

Employee appreciation is a classic form of encouragement. It’s also a natural way to develop a better sense of positivity throughout a team.

There are many ways to express appreciation to your team members. Some are simple, such as thanking them directly or giving them credit when it is due. Others are more momentous, such as giving them a raise or a chance to recapture some work-life balance. Still others are deliberate, like celebrating birthdays or avoiding humiliating them in public.

However you choose to show appreciation to your employees, remember that acknowledging their good actions and showing them respect is an effective way to keep them encouraged and productive.

Bolstering Business Growth Through Positive Team Culture

Positive team culture is a powerful business tool. A happy, healthy, and engaged group of individuals are far more productive than a group that is despondent or uninterested.

As a leader, it’s up to you to keep your team excited, interested, and engaged in their work. So consider the tips above and look for new ways to take your team’s positive culture to the next level, both for their own good and for the greater good of your business as a whole.