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43 Company Culture Improvement Ideas (That Actually Work)

3. House teams Harry Potter style

Cross-team collaboration is a really big problem in companies of more than 50 people. So to get different teams speaking and learning from each other how about this company culture idea? When a new team member joins they join a house with their own crest, colours, badges etc. Throughout the year houses can compete against each other at events for an annual trophy. Be it a company sports day, a simple pub quiz or an escape room experience.

4. Hire more women

Studies in 17 different countries in all different industries found that across the board, having a larger number of women on a team accounts for greater psychological safety, team confidence, group experimentation, and team efficiency. So having a healthier gender balance and more generational diversity,especially in senior-level positions can help drive your culture forward.

5. Get some stand out perks

Perk wars are getting pretty silly; there are only so many ping-pong tables and game consoles a company needs. But having really stand-out perks such as an on-site gym, unlimited holidays, and family-friendly parental leave policies are a great way to communicate to your employees that you care about them. Signing up for employee reward services like Bens catalogue of employee benefits & perks,Reward Gateway. Check out even more staff benefit ideas here from Stribe.

6. Do a culture workshop

Sometimes were so entrenched in an organisation we need an external perspective to understand what our culture really is. Doing a workshop with your employees, to talk about how to improve your, culture is a really good place to start. Try something likeCulturevist, a network of culture activists who run regular bespoke workshops and events.

7. Practice meditation regularly

Stress and mental health are still one of the last work taboos. Meditation encourages you to observe your emotions, and hang out with them, instead of avoiding or suppressing them. Teaching this skill to your employees can lead to happier and more harmonious teams. If a weekly class is too much, then you could offer employees free memberships to Headspace, a neat little app that leads you through 10-minute daily meditation practices voiced by an ex-Buddhist monk called Andy.

8. Get fitness trackers for all employees

Offering employees fitness trackers likeFitbitis a fun way to encourage health and wellness, as well as increasing inter-office relationships. A recent study conducted by the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) found companies that ranked highly for workplace health programs enjoyed stock values appreciated by 235%. This is compared to 159% for the overall S&P 500 during the six-year simulation period. To encourage company-wide adoption, innovative organisation Belronheld a competition on who could walk the most steps in a week between one side of the office and the other.

9. Duvet days

Holidays are vital for your colleagues to recharge their batteries. But surprise holidays are met with even more gratitude. Why not give people a couple of duvet days a year where if employees just feel like staying in bed they can?

10. New job celebrations

Employees leaving is part of life. Instead of feeling down and being a kind of a buzzkill, we started celebrating people moving onto new jobs. A congrats on your new job card instead of a sorry youre leaving card is a small shift but it creates a company culture of celebration, not mourning.

11. Embed the right of first conversation for employees thinking about leaving

A healthy employee relationship is an open one. Encourage all employees to speak to their manager if they are thinking of interviewing elsewhere. There may be something that could be fixed in the company. Or if not, they may be encouraged to leave. If a manager has their colleagues best interests at heart, they shouldnt let keeping a team together be to the detriment of someones future. Online shoe giant Zappos goes a step further by offering moneyfornew startersto quit at the end of their induction.

12. Beers and Ideas

People have lots of awesome ideas that die in peoples minds. Often at ThriveMap, were too busy with the day-to-day to explore all the new ideas we have. Under the mantra that the best ideas are usually hatched in the pub, we have a regular dedicated time to discuss them over a few drinks.

13. Weekly office massages

Massages can be a great stress reliever. Offering them as a perk to your employees signals that you know that work can be stressful, but youre here to make things better where you can. Check out Urban Massageto book a regular slot.

14. Link your work to purpose

The common misconception is that you need to be saving the world to feel like what you do is meaningful. If you can link everyones job to the value and happiness it creates in peoples lives, youll get people who want to come to work because they know they make a difference. My favourite story of this was during a visit to the NASA space centre in 1962, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man, and said:Hi, Im Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?Well, Mr. President,the janitor responded,Im helping put a man on the moon.To most people, this janitor was just cleaning the building, but in his reality, he was helping to make history.

15. Create a company culture manifesto

Most companies have values, and thats great, but we thinkmanifestos are better. Manifestos are action-orientated documents that hold people to a certain way of working rather than one-word values which can be open to interpretation. Best of all, a manifesto is a living document thats always up to date, editable by anyone on the team, and never crammed into the bottom drawer of anyones desk next to an old granola bar wrapper.

16. Measure employee engagement

Once-a-year feedback doesnt come close to providing an employee with the tools they need to improve and grow. Using a pulse survey tool likeCultureAmp or Peakon to regularly measure employee engagement will reduce the feedback loop meaning more action can be taken to address team sentiment.

17. Have tennis balls by the door

Strange I know. But an idea weve been toying with is to have a stack of tennis balls by the office exit and each day ask all people to throw the ball into one of two buckets. One bucket is for Ive had a good day today, the other is for Ive had a bad day today. Forcing your employees to anonymously reflect daily helps them appreciate the good days and passively vent about the bad. Also by measuring the good/bad ratio, youll get a good indicator of whether you need to take some drastic action to improve the culture.

18. Start Innovation Mondays

Mondays can kind of suck. So on the first Monday of every month, ask everyone to turns off their phones and shut down their email to devote their entire day to innovation. Hopefully repeatedly great Mondays will shake off their bad reputation.

19. Create a Dream Board

Get a pinboard where employees can share their ambitions, growth opportunities, and ways in which they want to contribute to the world. All employees can see each others dreams and offer to help make them a reality.

20. Have a Praise Leaderboard

Encourage a weekly vote for people who have gone the extra mile for each other and get praised by everyone in front of the whole company.

21. Send 1-Ups

A little recognition goes a long way. Encourage a culture of sending a little thank you message to colleagues giving them thanks for doing something good. The person with the most 1-Ups a month gets a prize.

22. Create the Make My Day team

Create a secret team that brings fun elements into work every 2 weeks. From weirdness in the workspace to random acts of kindness. Give them a small budget and see what they come up with. It can be anything from buying everyone a coffee to surprising people with something thats important to them.

23. Create and casta company play

So I was a bit sceptical when I heard about this one, but Ive been turned around. Creating a theatrical production of some sort, acted out by your employees is a really fun way to get people to collaborate together and see their personalities shine through.

24. Hold a minute silence for your competitors demise

Every heros journey involves conquering a massive fear or a big horrible ogre. Have regular moments of silence for the demise of your competitors or the death of the industry youre disrupting to pre-empt succeeding in your quest for greatness. A bit morbid we know, but its only a bit of fun.

25. Do walk and talks

We are heavily influenced by the physical environment in which we are in. If you want to change someones mood, its easiest to change their physical state first and get them outside. So instead of having one-to-ones in your office, go for a walk and talk instead. Youll find the fresh air, movement and relaxed nature make people open up more easily.

26. Use a talking stick for meetings

According to research by the clever folk at Google, the best teams are when people feel comfortable that they can express their opinion. Often its felt like the loudest people in the room get things their way more than the quiet types. The talking stick is a technique that allows people to speak equally. The talking stick is passed around from member to member allowing only the person holding the stick to speak. This enables all those present to be heard, especially those who may be shy; consensus can force the stick to move along to assure that the long-winded dont dominate the discussion, and the person holding the stick may allow others to interject. Youll be amazed by how many valuable insights come from people who dont have the confidence or natural inclination to express their ideas in team environments.

27. Starter packs for new employees

We recently introduced these as a fun new way to onboard people. Each new starter has to create a survival pack for the next new starter to join the company. These can include helpful things like wifi passwords, company swag, and emergency tea bags, but theyre often a lot more personal with handmade gifts and advice on how to deal with our deeply sarcastic CTO Mark.

28. Desks on wheels

Everyone likes to work in different places, but when it comes to the office were often tethered to our fixed desks. Putting wheels under sit-down and stand-up desks so they can be moved can help make your team happier and more productive. Just dont forget the brakes!

29. Redesign your office

Office design has a huge effect on culture. Airbnbs new London office is made up of 35% kitchen space to encourage office collaboration. Offices with different layouts create different behavioural norms, work with the team to establish where people work best, and put them in the places theyll be happiest.

30. Introduce an annual workation

A work vacation, also known as a woliday (just kidding) Either way, take the company to somewhere new for a week where the whole company can work from a new location.

31. Dress up Fridays

Instead of the typical dress-down Fridays, why not throw in dress-up Fridays once a month and encourage people to wear suits and ties, their Sunday best? Kudos to Space Ape Gamesfor this one. Or if you always wear suits, go the extra mile: ballgowns, white tie, top hat, and tails.

32. Lunch and learns

Invite speakers into the office to teach life skills, inspire people and educate. This doesnt have to be done on a budget, why not ask your employees to talk about something theyre passionate about?

33. Introduce a dare to try award

Creating a company culture where failure is acceptable is critical to letting people experiment and grow. Having an award to celebrate an idea that didnt work out is a great way to let people know that new ideas are encouraged. Credit goes to Tata for this one who started this in 2007 to encourage the culture of risk-taking, perseverance, and sharing openly. Failure is never the goal of a company, but failing and learning is better than not trying in the first place. Just look at Nokia, talking about their business failing: we didnt do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost

34. Bring your pet to work day

If you dont already have a pet-friendly office then encouraging people to bring their pets to work will open up new conversations and strike up new friendships. Getting your employees to know more about each other enables them to connect on a brand new level. The popularity ofBring Your Dog to Work Day on 24 June each year means a wider range of businesses are waking up to the benefits of allowing dogs at work. Oh and if anyones allergic to animals or just hates pets then give them the option to work from home or a co-working space with other pet haters.

35. Start a company seed investment fund

Building a venture capital firm as part of the company can let employees grow their own ideas and back them rather than risk losing them. Companies likeUnilever,Aviva,IBM,Google, andSamsung all have thriving CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) arms to fund internal and external ideas that complement their business streams. Thats great of course, but you dont need to be a giant monolith to try this idea. It could be a small fund to let people start their dream side-hustles and be even happier at work.

36. Innovation time (for everyone)

Another hat tip to Google who started this trend way back when for their engineering teams. Dont just let developers work on their own projects; other people have ideas and dreams too. Hosting an innovation day to get different departments into work on wacky ideas can be a great way to foster collaboration and generate ideas that take your business forward.

37. Create a company culture video

Creating fun and real employer brand videos to capture your company culture can be enlightening and help to communicate your human side. Start by crowdsourcing ideas on how to define your culture from your employees and go from there. Candidates are sceptical of anything thats too over-produced or inauthentic. Capturing a few videos on your smartphone to give people a flavour of what life is really like at your company is sometimes much better received.

38. Create an internal mentoring program

Mentoring has huge benefits in employee retention and training and development. Not only will your team learn from the best, but your best people will also get better too. Your company holds so much knowledge, its time to harness it.

39. Give new employees a personalised workspace budget

Giving each employee space and freedom to customize their work area to their personal work preferences is one of the best ways to create a better work environment. If you are asking someone to spend 8 hours of their day at a desk, at least let them make the desk their own.

40. Start an onboarding Bootcamp

Good onboarding has a big impact on how quickly your new starters get up to speed and how well they go on to perform. To ensure people understand the whole company and feel connected to learning about the company you could do the following:Give everyone at least a day working in each department as part of their bootcamp. Each department scores the new employee against how well they embody the company values.When you graduate from bootcamp you get a t-shirt with your name and the year you started. This is when you officially become an employee. If you dont pass bootcamp or you choose to leave then the t-shirt gets burned.

41. Buy an announcement gong

If someone has an idea of doing things better or wants to share positive news, they sound the gong. When the gong sounds everyone has to stop and listen. This is particularly effective in red flag systems where an employee finds something that is not working or can be done better.

42. Implement a salary cap

Implement a 6:1 salary ratio meaning that the highest-paid person cant be paid more than 6x the lowest paid person. Why? Its difficult to form friendships and relationships between people who are at massively different levels.

43. Get a Dream Machine

Props go toPropellerneton this one, we love it. Heres how it works:1- Ask everyone to consider and write down their dreams in life, the things that would really make life better for them.2- Ask each employee to pick one big dream and 3 not-so-big dreams. Everything from traveling Africa on a motorbike through to making a film script into a movie or taking a qualification3- Put all your employees dreams in a giant 80s bubble gum dispenser.4- When a company milestone is achieved then make an employees dream come true by drawing a random dream ball from the dispenser, and voila, your very own Dream Machine.

Thats it, folks! How many of these does your company have? Id love to hear your comments and culture hacks in the comments box below.To all the people I robbed of their great culture ideas, I hope youll join me in smiling at the fact theyll hopefully be inspiring others and making better companies.

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