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Creating a positive environment in the workplace is essential for every organization. A good work culture is the cornerstone of a well organization where employees feel motivated, valued, respected to contribute their best. If you can continue to implement a positive work culture, employees will not only be engaged, but also experience higher productivity, job satisfaction, and collaboration. Let's see what you can do to start creating a new work culture and driving the company's success. What are the characteristics of a positive work culture? A good work culture can be defined by several key characteristics, with a focus on employee engagement. Some important traits of a good work culture are trust and respect, open communication, inclusivity and diversity, collaboration, work-life balance, and opportunities for growth. With these characteristics in your work culture, you not only attract top talent, but can also grow new talent with great skills, leading to long-term success for both individuals and teams. Communication is the most crucial thing in any organization. By building transparent, honest, and frequent communication, every individual can build trust and understanding. Employees feel free to share concerns, ideas, and feedback without fear of retribution or judgment. If this is built continuously, mutual trust and respect between leaders and employees will be formed. Employees are likely to be engaged and loyal to the organization. What impact does a work culture have on employee engagement and productivity? Work culture can shape employee engagement because a supportive work culture fosters a sense of belonging, which makes employees feel connected to their team and align with the company's goals. Employees are more likely to invest their time and skills into their work. Plus, with open communication, employees can regularly receive feedback to improve and grow.  Why does work culture also shape employee productivity? Because employees who feel appreciated are less likely to experience disengagement, or burnout, and they will take fewer absenteeism like sick days, leave from work, and are more present at work. Employees who have high trust in their organization will work more efficiently and be responsible for each of their tasks. This will help decision-making processes, collaboration and teamwork to complete tasks quickly, and anything to boost productivity. What are some actionable steps for organizations to promote new work culture? Promoting a new work culture requires clear communication, intentional actions, and consistent leadership to guide employees. Some actionable steps that can be taken to foster a positive work culture: Lead by example Leadership must be a role model for the behaviors and attitudes they expect from any individual. Leaders must exemplify the cultural traits they want to see in others. This will set the tone for every employee, whether it's adaptability, collaboration, transparency, or how to handle problems. Recognize and reward employees Create a system for recognizing and rewarding employees' contributions, from small to big milestones. You can start by creating handwritten notes, shout-outs during meetings, public recognition, to creating formal awards and corporate gifts. Employees who feel recognized will be more enthusiastic to give their all and time, plus a sense of accomplishment. Safe and supportive environment Ensure you have a psychologically safe workplace where employees can express their opinions, ask questions, make mistakes, without fear of being judged or excluded. Leaders must constantly pay attention to employee's mental health and well-being. A safe environment can reduce work stress and anxiety, leading to job satisfaction and higher engagement. Adapt to change Support your employees to navigate new organizational shifts, processes, and technologies. If you get your employees used to embracing change and adaptability, your company will stay competitive and ensure employees remain engaged during transitions. Challenges when creating a work culture Creating a new working culture has its own challenges, and can be hampered by several factors. For example, the main reason why companies have difficulty building a good working culture is resistance to change. Leaders and employees may be resistant to change because they are already comfortable with the existing culture, or are afraid to start something new. To get through this, you need to communicate the reasons for the cultural shift and provide employee training to help the culture transition. Lack of direction is also a cause of work culture not running well, because employees might struggle to know what the goal of changing work culture is and lack of clarity in a team. This will lead to misalignment and confusion to each individual. You can overcome this with a leader who clearly defines the company's mission and cultural goals, to ensure everyone is on the same vision and tells how to contribute to it. How to maintain a positive work culture during periods of uncertainty? With economic downturns, global crises, and organizational changes, you need to have a strategy to maintain a good work culture. Keep employees informed about any changes that may be happening, and communicate openly about challenges and how the company plans to navigate the problems. Transparency will reduce anxiety, plus employees are less likely to feel disconnected from the company's direction. You can offer flexibility during uncertain times, allowing employees to work remotely, take time off, and adjust their schedules to help manage their personal and professional lives more effectively. Flexibility can alleviate stress and balance competing demands during uncertain times. Don't forget to teach a growth mindset by promoting resilience, problem-solving, adaptability by letting employees contribute solutions, decision making, and transparency to any challenges the company faces. Top Strategies to Enhance Employee Performance Stay focused on the organization's long-term vision and goals by sharing future objectives with employees and what the company has done for company recovery and growth. Maintaining a focus on long-term goals will provide a sense of purpose and direction for stabilizing during uncertain times. And don't forget to always check the SMEBrother website to find out various information to survive in difficult economic situations, whether problems arise from company finances, leadership, licensing, or surefire ways to level up your company. SMEBrother is always ready to provide useful information for you to thrive your business and become a trusted partner for corporate business processing.

The company's progress can be seen from how the company has employees with high levels of productivity and skills. Investing in employee development will also improve employee performance, leading to higher revenue, having a solid team, and improved customer satisfaction. If you do this continuously, you can get high-performing employees with better work quality, minimum errors, and low turnover rates. Let's see what needs to be prepared when we want to improve team members’ performance. How can we measure employee performance? The most common thing for employers to check employee performance is in terms of company revenue or sales. But for certain areas that are not directly related to sales, you can use a variety of metrics such as efficiency, feedback, and quality of work.  Ask for feedback from each team member regarding the performance of coworkers, managers, or others. This can be a reference for whether each team member understands the abilities of their coworkers, whether they respect each other, whether their assessments are objective and in accordance with reality in the workplace. Best Strategies to Improve Employee Performance The next step for measuring work performance is time management. Track how long it takes each employee to complete tasks, is their work quality adequate and up to standard? The last step is with key performance indicators to measure aspects of performance that align with company goals. How to manage underperforming staff? After measuring all team members' performance, you probably found underperforming employees. This means an employees' work quality has decreased before expectations or required level. These situations can occur due to many factors, but some behaviors that demonstrate underperformance are negative behavior, worsened compliance with procedures and policies, failure to meet the expected standards. There are many causes of employees underperforming, such as job dissatisfaction, lack of skills, stressful work environment, bad relationships with coworkers, inadequate training opportunities, and personal issues. Investigating this is the employer's obligation, because it is necessary to ensure that each employee works comfortably, delivers their obligations according to expectations, and has the same training opportunities as each other. The first step is to recognize their problem, be perspective with employees' behaviors by conducting one-on-one meetings and gain their perspective. After employees explain their underperforming problems, you can find solutions together or conduct meetings with others for the underlying problem. Is the problem at work? Is there conflict within the team? Is the work given too difficult? All of these problems must be found so that they can be unraveled and resolved properly. For some ways to improve employee performance, we will explain in detail below. Best strategies to improve employee performance Please remember that business success relies on employees' performance. If employees are engaged, motivated, and productive, their work will meet expectations and any targets you set for them. Here are the best ways to improve employee performance in your organization. Clear communication Communication between managers and team members must be clear, because it can avoid any confusion and disengagement from their roles. Every manager must have effective communication skills, regardless of who they are communicating with. When team members understand their duties, jobs, and purpose, they will understand what needs to be set for their goals, and align it with the company's goal.  Clear and actionable description of employees' responsibilities is the best way to establish relevant employee performance. Let employees ask questions if there is something confusing in their role, and suggest them to repeat what they understand to ensure that the manager and team members are on the same page. Encourage feedback Employees feedback matters. Sometimes employees who cannot show their feelings because of discomfort in the workplace are one of the main causes of underperformance. Let each team member provide feedback on how the team should work, what needs to be fixed from the managers' attitudes, or what rules are too burdensome for employees. Encourage employees to provide criticism plus solutions. This will help the company to grow a positive culture by getting its employees used to making constructive criticism, and they can accept the same thing according to what they do. Train and develop employees Employees who understand and have a basic skill of their role is not enough, because every employee has the right to continue learning to perform their jobs with precision. You need to include each team members in robust training programs, workshops and coaching systems. Every employee needs to show the results of their training by implementing it into the job, or doing a short presentation about what they got. These tactics can ensure that every employee can expand their skills and knowledge, which can help to improve their performance. Build a good support culture Craft a robust culture that demonstrates each team member respects each other, plus managers and bosses respect each team members. You can provide support to employees with competitive salaries, healthy environment and workplace perks. Ensure you can detect if there are employees who are stressed with their work, you can talk it out, give employees more time to rest and calm down before they return to work. This will help employees not to feel overwhelmed by any condition, respect what they feel, and maintain engagement with employees. Celebrate wins Managers often forget what employees have achieved, and sometimes that makes them lazy to give good performance. You need to celebrate any achievements with significant results, to build employee enthusiasm and they can focus on the team achievements through their work. Plus, employees who feel their work is valued will be more enthusiastic and ensure their work quality, encourage them to bring consistent and high-quality work. You can celebrate employee achievements by praising your team or each team member, taking your team out to dinner, giving corporate gifts, or giving incentives. Employee performance is crucial for business progress. You need to think about ways to always improve employee performance by creating a comfortable working atmosphere, providing training to improve employees' knowledge and skills, being a good support for each team member, and several points that we have conveyed above.  Hopefully SMEBrother can help you in elevating your business to the next level with the best tips about improving team members' performance. If you want more information about business, SMEBrother is your best solution. Check our website for SME matters and growing your business from small to large scale.

Finding top talent is hard, because they can’t suddenly get into your company even though you have opened a job vacancy. But there is still a way to find top talents that never loses its charm, by attending a job fair. A job fair is one of the best ways to engage fresh graduated students or currently-employed individuals who need other opportunities, by selecting the best from the pool. For employers, this can be a crucial frontline to attract and fetch top talents to the business. We will explain in this article how to attract top talents to your company. What is a job fair? A job fair is an event where recruiters, employers, and schools meet to find prospective job candidates. This event provides an opportunity for employers to offer information about their organization, or provides a table to collect candidate resumes and exchange business cards. Employers and job seekers can discuss job opportunities, expand their network, and exchange job information. This event is attended by many candidates, and has many opportunities for recruiters and employers to find potential top talents. What is top talent? The top talent is a term for employees who have good potential with a combination of great behaviors, good attributes, having both hard and soft skills. Some characteristics of top candidates are strong work ethic, having leadership potential, fast learner, initiative, passionate, easy to work with and dependable. Each company has different criteria in determining their talents, and when you are going to attract some of the top candidates at a job fair, you must explain in detail about the role requirements, company's business objectives, and company's culture. What are the benefits of attending a job fair? Attending job fairs is not only to find potential candidates, but also has many benefits for companies. Job fairs are an opportunity for employers to connect with industry professionals, other businesses, and potential partners. These connections can expand opportunities for sponsorships, collaborations, and access to gaining top talent from recommendations from other employers.  Employers can take advantage of the opportunity at job fairs for brand visibility and demonstrate their commitment to the local workforce to attract top talent. Some talents or candidates who are in line with the company's mission will be interested in joining and learning more about your organization. If employers have the opportunity to attend more than one job fair, then employers can get a lot of real-time feedback on how competitors attract talents, what things can attract candidates, and what market trends are. Plus, job fairs are a cost-effective way to get potential candidates in one place and in a short period of time. How to attract top talent at a job fair For employers, attending a job fair is not only about finding as many potential employees as possible, but also choosing the best ones. Take a look at some of our tips that you can prepare for the next job fair and attract talented individuals: Describe in detail your hiring needs Before entering a job fair, you need to prepare the purpose of joining the job fair and assess the recruitment needs. By knowing what position and why you need new talent for your organization, you can focus on the requirements and criteria you are looking for. When the talent submits their resume, you can follow up with the questions you have prepared, plus what you need to test to get the best talent. Prepare the team Team leaders need to participate in job fairs to ensure that the new talent can fit into the team, ensuring the role will be filled. The team leader needs to prepare all the company's information such as business vision and goals, company culture, procedures for applying, and requirements. You need to divide the tasks to several people if you bring 3-4 team members to the job fair. Ensure each person has their own role such as explaining to candidates and giving business cards for introduction, giving corporate gifts to anyone interested in your company plus for brand awareness, the part receiving resumes and explaining what the next steps are for applying, etc. Leverage your social media account Social media is the best medium for further promotion after many people know your company at the job fair. You can inform your followers through social media accounts when you will be attending a job fair, and let them know you are hiring. There are many social media platforms that can attract a lot of engagement such as Facebook and Instagram. You can also do Instagram Live when the job fair starts, to open up opportunities for job seekers who want to know your company and did not have time to attend the job fair due to distance or time constraints. Introducing employee development Every candidate will need as much detailed information as possible about what their benefits are after becoming an employee at your place. You can show candidates that your office prepares employee development such as seminars, courses, room for learning with team members, and other programs to ensure employees have the opportunity to gain career growth and new knowledge according to their fields. This will attract the interest of many great talents, because someone who wants to continue to learn new things is a characteristic of someone who wants to continue to develop for the common good. 10 Effective Team Management Skills For Your Business The many benefits of attending a job fair require you to prepare many things so that you can get the best talents from every job fair you attend. Show the best so that your company is known for its positive culture and good visuals. If you do some of the tips above, there will be many top candidates who are interested in your company and interested in going further.  SMEBrother is ready to give you other tips regarding job fairs or finding the best candidates for the team and role you need. Hope SMEBro tips can help you attract top talents and visit our website for various tips in thriving your business to the next level.