Impactful Ways to Improve Your Company Culture
Company culture isn’t about perks or slogans—but they can help—it’s about the underlying nature of how your business operates. It influences everything from leadership style and team dynamics to customer experience and business results. What does your culture communicate to your business today? More importantly, how do you improve it?
Whether you’re building culture from the ground up or simply looking to improve what’s already in place, here are clear, effective steps to elevate your company culture.
What Is Company Culture?
Company culture is the everyday reality of your workplace. It’s defined by the values, behaviors, and attitudes that guide how your team communicates, collaborates, and makes decisions.
Solid company culture drives business success. It strengthens your employer brand, improves retention, boosts engagement, and helps attract top talent. Additionally, it directly impacts customer satisfaction and your bottom line.
Culture needs to come through in how you recruit, how you treat your folks, and how you treat your customers. That is, it’s less about what you say—it’s about what you do, every single time.
What Impacts Company Culture?
Culture is established by leadership and sustained by behaviors, policies, and the physical and virtual spaces in which employees work. Leadership sets the tone: the way you show up, make decisions, and communicate says what matters to you, and your employees make assumptions accordingly.
But real cultural change does more than enact leadership changes. It encompasses engaging your entire team, mobilizing your people around shared values, and creating a workspace that allows connection, accountability, and growth.
Five Approaches to Strengthen Company Culture
1. Develop a Culture of Transparency
Transparency is the building block of trust and psychological safety. By making individuals feel included and in the know, they’re more likely to stay involved and contribute meaningfully.
Use modern collaboration tools to share updates and insights across teams, especially in hybrid or remote settings.
Apply a “share by default” mentality—ask “Is there any reason not to share this?” instead of “Is this worth sharing?
Celebrate openly and discuss openly to create a feeling of shared problem-solving and ownership.
2. Recognize and Reward Contributions
Recognition motivates people. When your employees feel valued and appreciated, they are more productive and less likely to leave.
- Identify and recognize behaviors that align with your values and goals.
- Make peer-to-peer recognition easy so everyone has a stake, not just leaders alone.
- Use tools or platforms to automate recognition and embed it in daily processes.
- 31% reduced turnover in organizations with abundant recognition cultures.
3. Build Stronger Employee Relationships
Individuals build culture where they relate. Building relationships in and across teams solidifies trust, cooperation, and well-being.
Build physical spaces or digital touchpoints where people can have casual interaction—”collision points” like lunchrooms or team chats.
Host in-person and virtual team-building exercises to help departments connect.
Organize interdepartmental teamwork through cross-functional programs or mentorship.
4. Encourage Autonomy and Flexibility
Micromanaging erodes morale and stifles innovation. Trust your people to own their work and outcomes.
Give teams autonomy to decide how, when, and where they will work.
Explore flexible scheduling, results-oriented performance standards, or even four-day weeks where feasible.
Delegate decision-making authority to teams in areas where they have ownership to maximize participation and accountability.
5. Create Feedback Loops That Work
World-class cultures are built on open communication. Regular feedback helps you make course corrections early and keeps good habits.
- Provide immediate feedback during one-on-ones, not just year-end reviews.
- Use tools like engagement surveys and stay interviews to listen to your team.
- Act on feedback—showing their voices builds real change.
Previous blog: Why Smart Companies Are Turning Towards BPO and IT Outsourcing
Final Thought: Culture Is a Long Game
There is no template approach to company culture. What works for one business won’t work for another, but the principles hold true: transparency, recognition, autonomy, connection, and feedback.
The most effective cultures are purpose-driven, in motion, and inclusive. They’re based on the company’s mission and values—not in theory, but in practice.
Do the work. Measure what matters. And lead by example. Because culture is not something you build once—it’s something you do daily.
We are Talentus: a global company that provides US companies with reliable IT services, near-shore talent, and support to meet their needs.
