6 ways to clean up your work culture
What makes you happy in life? Do you think buying a new thing makes you happy?
According to research from San Francisco State University, the answer is “no.” The study found that people who invest in experiences, rather than stuff, are happier.
Sure, you’ll enjoy the thrill of anticipation before you purchase a new gadget. But once the anticipation fades, you won’t be any happier. In fact, you might feel stressed when you see your next credit card statement.
Meanwhile, your life experiences — whether you invest in travel, a hobby, or fun times with friends — will make you happier and more fulfilled.
It’s not surprising that 72% of Millennials prefer to spend money on experiences instead of material things. Everyone should take a page from their book.
Is your office ping-pong table contributing to a toxic work culture?
While more people are choosing life experiences over stuff, many companies haven’t received the memo.
Enterprises that want to project a start-up vibe are filling their offices with ping pong tables and indoor slides.
Companies try to outdo each other with employee “perks” such as rock-climbing walls and fully loaded coffee machines.
But do these things actually help your team perform better?
According to the authors of Primed to Perform, these perks can “mask or contribute to a toxic work culture.” Instead of responding to over-the-top perks, “people perform best when they enjoy the work itself, find purpose in the impact of their work, and see the potential for future opportunities. In fact, these motives are so powerful that they account for an incredible 28% increase in sales revenue among frontline sales employees.”
So, how can you rejuvenate your work culture and get these types of results from your team?
After co-founding two successful companies and now working on my third, I found the answer is quite simple.
Stop investing in stuff and start investing in your people.
6 ways to invest in your people and boost your productivity
At Helpful, we encourage our team to invest in themselves and each other. The more we support each other, the more we build trust and loyalty within the company. This allows us to be more productive, improve our customer experience, and drive revenue.
Here are six ways you can clean up your company culture by investing in your employees to drive performance— without filling your office with useless stuff:
- Host lunch-and-learns.
Even though everyone at our startup is busy, we always take the time to learn. We hold regular lunch-and-learns where we explore a variety of topics.
We’ve discussed venture finance, as many people on our team have entrepreneurial mindsets and might eventually launch their own companies. We’ve also studied marketing, brand positioning, new development techniques, and AI — basically, anything that interests our team or can help our business.
2. Budget for learning.
At Helpful, we give every employee a personal development allowance that they can spend on conferences, courses, and other learning opportunities.
We consider books to be free knowledge, or knowledge that you can attain for a ridiculously discounted price when compared to the expense of going back to school. So we give employees an unlimited book allowance so they can buy books on any topic they find interesting. When they’re done, the book is contributed to our office library, which has now grown to a collection of 60 titles that span a number of categories.
3. Invest in your community.
We encourage our employees to give back to their communities. They can select charities that align with their values and take paid time off work to volunteer.
We model our volunteer program off Salesforce.com’s 1–1–1 model, which leverages the company’s technology, people, and resources to help improve communities around the world.
When you invest in your community, you also invest in your people.
Employees usually don’t come up with their best ideas sitting in front of a screen. They are more innovative when they get out in the world and interact with others.
4. Give employees balance.
If you run a machine at capacity 100% of the time, it won’t have room to handle a spike in demand.
The same is true with your employees.
If you allow your employees to work round the clock, they will burn out. Exhaustion is harmful to both them and your bottom line. When you give your employees balance, they will have the energy to handle occasional spikes in demand.
At Helpful, each employee is assigned to a pair. They sit next to each other all day and focus on their work. By focusing, they can start at 9:00 a.m. and leave by 6:00 p.m. to have their evenings free to spend with their families. If employees get distracted with ping pong tables, they will likely need to work late to get everything done.
5. Sponsor your employees’ passions.
When I was at Workbrain, we sponsored individuals or teams when they pursued their passions. And these passions weren’t always directly related to what we did at the company. For example, we had a championship-winning sailor on our team. When he needed sponsorship for a big race, Workbrain stepped in to support him.
By encouraging our employees to take part in the things they loved, we showed them that we cared about their ongoing development. Then, they would bring their enthusiasm into their work and motivate their team to excel.
6. Promote health and wellness.
At Helpful, we give our employees a health spending allocation that they can use for fitness. They can join a gym, take up a sport, or purchase fitness equipment.
We also reserve time for yoga every Tuesday. Yoga is beneficial for our team, as it boosts energy, improves moods, and helps with focus. If people don’t want to take the yoga class, they can attend any other class during the week and Helpful will pick up the tab.
Companies waste a lot of time “playing start-up” by filling their offices with expensive distractions. When you invest in your employees, make learning a priority, and focus on the work, then you will skyrocket your productivity and revenue.
How is your business investing in its people? Think about ways you can invest in experiences, not things.
P.S. Helpful is a new company I’m working on. Check it out here to learn more.
