What's the number one thing owners can do to ensure their staff culture is healthy?

Your culture starts at the top. The easiest way to make sure your culture is healthy is to genuinely care about your staff.  I don't mean that you have to be best friends with the people you hire. I also don't mean that you need to be involved in their personal lives on any level. Maintaining boundaries in business is important. When I say that you need to genuinely care about your staff, I mean that you must own up to your own responsibilities as the owner of your business and as an employer. 

Many business owners set out to grow a successful business, and somewhere along the way, they lose sight of the fact that employing people comes with real responsibilities, which drive the cultural health of their business. It's easy to get caught up in the product or the growth without recognizing that, after a certain stage of business development, you must depend on and trust the people you have hired to succeed. As a business owner who employs staff, you have many responsibilities. These may seem like no-brainers, but when they start to slip through the cracks, your culture suffers, your staff members leave, and you spend countless hours and dollars hiring and training new staff to replace the old ones. Without addressing your responsibilities as an owner, you will never have the healthy culture you crave. 

Responsibility to Ethical Business Practices 

The level of ethics you carry as an owner trickles down to your staff.  It impacts them in multiple ways, first if you are ethical, your employees will likely strive for the same level of ethical excellence. We cannot control how employees respond to your expectations, but humans have a beautiful ability to rise to the bar set before them.

Like it or not, your ethics impact morale. If you are asking staff to carry out tasks in unethical ways, it weighs on them in more ways than you might think and contributes to the downslide of your culture.  Staff begin to question if their work has value; they may even begin to question if they should be carrying out the work at all.  Employees with hearts half in the business due to internal ethical dilemmas are bound to contribute to negative culture shifts.  

You are in the driver’s seat when it comes to your business ethics.  Take that seriously. Cutting corners now may seem like a good way to save money, but it costs you more in the end to do things the wrong way. 

Responsibility to Trust Employees 

Congratulations! You have been successful enough in your business growth that you have employees.  This is a huge achievement and something worth celebrating. Hiring employees marks a new era in your business.  It can be hard to let go of daily tasks you once managed so that you can continue to develop other parts of your business.  Having designed my processes in several roles in the past, I know how hard it can be to let go of the things you create.  Here is the hard truth: once you delegate the task, you have to let it go.  You went through the recruiting and hiring process. You found someone you felt would be a good fit for the business.  Here is the hard part: if a staff member completes the task in a way that produces a quality result, that is what matters. The truth is, if they change your process to make it more efficient for their daily workflow, it doesn’t really matter if they do it the same way you did.  By stepping back into the work, questioning things you have already released, or re-assigning tasks to yourself, you create a sense of distrust with your team.  This is why it is so important to have a clear understanding and plan for position expectations before you hire someone.  Make sure those expectations are clear during the hiring and training process, and once you are comfortable with letting employees work on their own, let them. Of course, I am not saying you can never question employee work, especially if you have quality or performance concerns, but if you never give your employees a chance to thrive in the work they do, you are creating the footholds for toxic culture to creep into your office. 

Responsibility to Treat Staff With Dignity 

This one is easy, but if you come into your office acting like you are the most important person on the planet, it will make your team anxious around you.  Yes, you are the boss, and you do have authority over your business and even your employees, but your value as a human being is the same regardless of whether you own the business or scrub the floors.  When you bring arrogance into your office, don’t be surprised when toxic culture follows through the door you opened with your poor attitude. 

Responsibility to Provide Consistent Expectations 

This follows an earlier point I made about trusting your staff, but it deserves its own section.  Consistent expectations are critical when it comes to developing a healthy culture in your office. When expectations are clear and consistent, you create a stable ground for your team to grow on.  It allows employees to come to work every day knowing what to expect and what is expected of them.  When staff are unsure about expectations, it leads to a variety of emotions, which can translate into office gossip, poor attitudes, and general apathy at work, all of which lead to a poor overall culture. 

Responsibility to Provide Adequate Compensation 

If your business is not willing to pay staff what they are worth, it is not ready to hire people. When you take on the responsibility of hiring team members, you are signaling to them that your business is a safe harbor for their lives.  The personal life that their career supports depends on you being able to provide adequate compensation and benefits consistently. The ability to provide a competitive wage consistently is important. The ability to keep up with competitive wages year over year is also important.  Do your research before you develop a role, so you understand what is expected of you. Many new employees will be excited just for the opportunity to have a new job or career, but over time, if you do not keep up with a competitive wage and benefits package, it can lead to unrest, staff burnout, and a toxic culture. 

This is a high expectation; you may be asking yourself why a healthy culture even matters.  In the long run, your culture is everything; the culture can give you a pulse on the overall success and longevity of your business.  You cannot grow on your own after achieving a high level of success. You have built something that requires stewardship, so steward it well.  Remember that your culture starts with you.  Take it as a calling to excel and create the kind of place you want to work.