Company culture is a critical part of retaining your employees. 58% of employees would consider leaving a job because of the poor overall culture, including negative office politics. 86% of potential employees won’t come to work for a company–or continue to work for a company–with a bad reputation, both with other workers and with the community at large.
Not only that, your company culture can be a critical element in winning sales. A salesperson who is dissatisfied with the job as a whole and your company’s culture, in general, will be less invested in the brand, less enthusiastic about the products you have to offer, and less invested in making sales. Employee engagement drops hard when employees are dissatisfied with the culture in their current work environments–and as a result, employees are much less likely to put in the effort you need.
Try some of these strategies to help address your company culture and build overall employee satisfaction.
Foster communication between employees.
Communication is a critical element of any company’s culture. With poor communication, employees are generally less likely to feel connected to their coworkers, their bosses, and the company as a whole–especially when it comes to door-to-door sales, where employees may spend the majority of their business days on the road and disconnected from the work environment as a whole.
Pronto can make it easy to foster employee communication by keeping all those workplace communications in one easy-to-access location. Employees can carry the Pronto app with them on their devices, which means they can check-in after a difficult customer, chat about potential challenges they may face every day, or find fast answers to their problems.
Establish rituals and opportunities for connection.
Rituals are an important part of company culture. That doesn’t mean that you have to engage in odd chants or force employees to participate in team-building exercises that are mostly an exercise in embarrassment (and, in fact, those activities may be counterproductive, especially for savvy members of Gen Z or the millennial generation). Instead, try establishing rituals and connections that work for your company.
Maybe you have a virtual Happy Hour once a week where employees can come together. Perhaps you have a morning coffee together to start your work week, even if you do it virtually. Have small break-out sessions where employees have the chance to build and learn together. Celebrate successes, birthdays, or anniversaries, even if it’s with a small acknowledgement. Those rituals will help bring employees together, give them a shared foundation, and help improve their overall view of your company and its culture.
Clearly establish policies and requirements.
For the most part, people want to succeed. Success is a private win: a specific accomplishment that helps improve an employee’s individual opinion of himself. If given the tools necessary to succeed, most people will choose to pursue success. If you want to build a strong company culture that helps point your employees toward success, start by providing them with the tools they need to get there. Clearly establish your policies and requirements, and give employees easy access to that information–especially if you undergo a policy shift or change.
Pronto, for example, allows you to store documents and send out announcements, which employees can then save and refer back to later. Use those options to clearly share what is required of your salespeople. How many homes do you expect them to visit? How many times should they visit a house, especially if they do not get an answer? How many sales do you realistically expect–and what incentives are available? When those policies are clear, employees are more likely to abide by them–and more likely, in general, to succeed.
Focus on the things that are important to your company.
Take a look at what it is that sets your company apart and what you stand for. What values are a critical part of your company culture? What goals are you seeking to accomplish? You may have a specific cause that you support or a specific attribute that you prize in your salespeople. Make sure you have a clear focus on those things that set you apart.
Employees want to belong to a company that matters–and they want to feel as though they matter. They want to see their contributions making a difference. For salespeople, who may feel disconnected from the company as a whole due to their time spent outside the physical work environment, it can be more difficult to see that focus and that difference. Fortunately, through Pronto, you can share that vital information with all your employees, from sharing how the company has helped your local community recently to sharing the real difference your products are making in consumers’ lives.
The right communication tool can make a huge difference in your overall company culture–and as your company culture improves, you’ll see the corresponding difference in employee retention and sales. Contact us today to learn more about how Pronto can help you meet your business goals.
