In a recent article, I wrote about how you can attract and retain great staff for your business. I focused on empathising with your employees’ needs, creating a team environment and reward incentives. However, what I didn’t get into in any real detail was team culture.

Team culture is intrinsically linked to that of your business, and that’s something I’ve been focusing on more and more. In order to have a clear idea of the direction you’re going in, it’s important to have a distinct vision of what your company culture looks like. This culture can be defined by many things, including the particular values that you hold, your ambitions and how you set yourself apart from your competitors. But it also comes down to your core team of employees.

When I first got into the accommodation industry, I was mostly concerned with skill-sets when it came to employing new members of staff. However, I’ve shifted my thinking recently and become more interested in whether an employee aligns with our company culture, and whether or not they can help add to that culture.

This is because, in most cases, skills can be taught. I can teach employees what they need to do in their role, whether that be cleaning, management or the ins and outs of customer service. What I can’t teach them is how to fit into our specific culture.

Now, when I’m looking at hiring a new member of staff, I think about what their values are, to what extent their values align with those of the business and whether they would be happy moving in the direction we’re going.

Not only does this mentality mean that you’re going to find an employee who’s more likely to fit in to your team quicker and easier, but also they’re going to be more content and stay with you for the long-run.

Having this strong business culture and making sure that your employees are aligned with that is also a great way of offering incentives to your staff, other than just financial rewards. We let our employees know that there’s plenty of room for manoeuvre in our company, and that there are plenty of transferable qualities that they can learn and use throughout their career.

One of the biggest positives of this is the strong sense of teamwork it creates. Culture means that employees feel more valued and engaged in the business’ objectives as a whole. They help and train each other, and are individually motivated to reaching the collective goals.

Making this shift towards thinking on a larger scale about your business philosophy and the values you thread into every aspect of your company is something I couldn’t recommend highly enough. Of course, it’s something that often happens organically, but it’s also something that needs to be consciously solidified. And once you do it you’ll begin to see the positive changes it has across all levels of your business.