Office Culture: What’s the Temperature of Your Office?

What a sick office culture looks like.

The bad news: if your office displays 2 of the following 5 team maladies, you have a sick office culture:

1. Interoffice sabotage (usually driven by gossip)
2. Excessive non-medical absenteeism
3. Limited dialogue, lack of free expression
4. High turnover – all staff positions
5. No passion. Lack of direction. It’s for the paycheck, not the team

The good news: changing office culture is top down. Managers / directors / supervisors have the ability to make significant changes that will move an environment of dread to a positive and productive office.

Interoffice sabotage is nefarious. It’s hard to uncover and equally as difficult to combat. In most instances relationship building is a beginning to recovery.   Open and frank communication is the driver. Be warned, you may not like or agree with what you hear – but ignorance, in this case, is certainly not bliss.

When your employees dread coming to work – managers need to find out why. Multiple absenteeism due to “personal” reasons become a key indicator when numbers increase. This takes a little bit of sleuthing and a lot of communication. Team meetings that foster dialogue is one way to start. Always be sensitive to conversation after “meeting adjourn”!

Nothing is more frustrating than to nurture a new employee – only to have him or her jump ship. Employee turnover is expensive, hurts productivity and kills team morale. It’s true, payment incentives may factor in when an employee leaves. But negative environments can be equally – if not more – the reason for leaving. The dream team is comprised of employees that want to be at work.

Team building did not go out of style with 1980s big hair. Determining what you want your company/department/office to be known for and creating the enthusiasm of your team to build the brand is powerful for productivity, quality, and above all positive office dynamics.

Let us know if you’d like more on this topic. As always – we welcome your comments.