Creating strong, motivated and collaborative teams at every level of a company is hugely important to that company’s success. An organization cannot make serious gains without teamwork. For this reason, building a positive team culture amongst individual teams is just as important as the company culture.
Though the two impact one another, it should be the prerogative of every company to build great team culture.
What Is Team Culture?
Team culture is the shared values, practices and beliefs that guide the way employees interact with one another, their managers and customers.
It refers to the behaviour of humans within a team and what these behaviours mean.
It’s about how people work together towards their objectives and the manner in which they treat each other.
While an organisation can have a company culture, teams made up of different people can have different dynamics to their company and manifest their own culture.
When someone is talking about positive team culture, they’re talking about the type of workplace where team members work together, share knowledge, openly communicate and provide support and friendship to each other.
When talented employees are able to work together in a positive space it creates an environment that encourages productivity, creativity and loyalty. The result is happy, engaged employees who are genuinely invested in achieving not only the team’s objectives but the but company’s greater vision as well.
6 Tips for Building a Positive Team Culture
1. Set Aside Time for Your Team to Socialise
A factor that has a big impact on great team culture is friendship.
Ideally, you want your team members to genuinely like one another and to form strong bonds.
These types of relationships benefit a team’s culture because it helps to encourage collective goals and open communication.
However, these relationships often form when people have the chance to
This can be as simple as having a drink after work on a Friday and encouraging people not to discuss work. Give team members a chance to relax and talk about what else is going on in their life.
Read also: How to Deal with a Difficult Co-worker
2. Be a Leader, Not a Manager
One defining factor of building a positive team culture is the team’s relationship with their management or superior.
This is why it’s important if you’re in a managerial position to be conscious of how your management style may be affecting the dynamics of the team.
You have an impact on how comfortable employees feel in approaching you about issues or asking for help. A strong team culture usually comes when this relationship is one of mentorship rather than a typical boss-employee type of relationship.
By being a leader, you can have a far more positive influence on your team and its culture. The way to be a good leader is to communicate the collective goals of the team and to be a source of support.
It requires being an open and honest communicator, listening to the concerns and worries of team members, developing schedules that account for everybody’s schedules and deadlines and provide constructive feedback.
3. Promote a Culture of Learning and Development
Opportunities for learning and development contribute to an employee’s job satisfaction as it makes an employee feel valued and inspired by improving one’s skillset.
When every person is encouraged to reach their full potential, through access to training and development, the company benefits.
Within a team, this prevents team members from feeling bored or undervalued and creates opportunities for team members to take on new responsibilities or minimise the workload of those with a lot on their plate.
4. Encourage Knowledge Sharing
While as a leader you should organising opportunities for your team members to learn, you should also show them that they too can teach other team members new skills.
A team is only as strong as its weakest member and this emphasises the idea of knowledge sharing. By encouraging your team to teach one another, you not only foster bonds and a sense of a comradery, it also helps to strengthen the capabilities of your team.
5. Make Your Workplace Conducive to Teamwork
Part of building a positive team culture is having a physical environment where productive teamwork is possible. Cubicles or segregated work environments often don’t allow for a positive team environment because they discourage collaboration and instead isolate employees from one another.
By creating more collaborative workspaces where workers sit together and solve problems as a team, you can ensure great team culture. Sitting together and regularly interacting makes a big difference to the relationships between team members and ultimately, to the company culture.
Your team should have a designated area where they can discuss ideas and collaborate, rather than having to huddle in the breakroom together when they want to talk.
6. Celebrate Accomplishments
Part of a strong team culture is a culture where team members feel appreciated for their work and feel motivated to achieve objectives because of this. As a leader, you can encourage this kind of environment by recognising the successes of your employees and thanking them for it.
Whether this is verbally saying ‘thank you’ and naming the specific thing they have done or in the form of some sort of reward, acknowledging the achievements of your team is an important part of ensuring you have team members who feel valued.
So that’s how you build a positive team culture where everyone can thrive.
About The Author
Jade Anderson is an experienced In-house Editor at Upskilled. With a background in online marketing, Jade has always had a love for the written word. She enjoys being able to combine these skills with her passion for the education industry.
