How Start-Ups Can Build A Strong Team Culture

As a start-up entrepreneur, you want your team to succeed and make an impact in the market. But how do you create a strong team culture that will allow them to do so?

Building a strong team culture is both critical and challenging - it takes hard work, effective communication, strategy and commitment. Fortunately, there are many tried and tested strategies that can help you create a vibrant culture for your business so everyone works cohesively towards success.

In this blog post, we’ll provide some key tips for ensuring your start-up has a strong team culture from the very beginning.

What is Team Culture?

Team culture is an integral aspect of any startup. It refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that guide how a team interacts with one another and approaches work. It governs the way employees communicate, collaborate, and achieve their objectives, ultimately shaping the success of your start-up. 

A strong team culture creates an environment full of enthusiasm, trust and a growth mindset. The importance of team culture is clear, and here is what you need to do to strengthen it.

Establish your core values and objectives

As a founder, you need to effectively communicate the vision and values of your company to your team. 

When an employee understands the goals, values and mission of a start up they are more likely to see how their actions drive the company to its wider goal, increasing their motivation and sense of belonging in the company. 

By passionately sharing an inspiring and well-defined vision for the future, founders can generate excitement and enthusiasm amongst their teams, which can ultimately help their start up thrive. People are just as important as the product. 

If you don’t know what your core values and objectives are as a business, this is a good place to start before you begin hiring and building a team. 

Prioritise feedback from the team

If you want growth and improvement in your start up, you need to observe things from different perspectives and seek feedback from your team.

Each team member will have their own idea of handling things, which can be very valuable for strengthening the team culture and operations within your start up. You can ask for feedback in team meetings, one on ones, or even in an out of office event - each opportunity can offer great information and a chance to improve your team culture for the better.

This is especially useful to remember in regards to new hires who come with a fresh perspective and who can give ideas that might improve your business for the better. Demonstrating early on that the opinions of others are valued in your organisation encourages a culture of openness. Of course, you first need to ensure that you are hiring the right people for this to be effective, our Building a Successful Team workbook can support you with that. 

Give good work recognition 

Recognition is a chain of positivity that greatly improve motivation and productivity in a start up. Creating a supportive environment can do wonders for the employees’ motivation and creating a strong team culture. A study done by Bonusly showed that 46% of people who left their jobs did so because they did not feel appreciated. Another 65% claim they would put in more effort if their work were recognised.

You don’t need to make massive changes; in this case, a little goes a long way. Meaningful gestures like handwritten notes and gifts can mean a lot. For more ideas you can read our blog, 6 Ways You Can Retain Employees Aside From Salary Increases.

In summary

Building a strong team culture is an essential step to helping your start-up to thrive.

By prioritising it from day one, you're setting up the right foundations for success and growth. Your employees will become increasingly engaged as they understand their role in the development of the business and its future prospects.

Where does HR come into this? HR sits underneath it all, it informs the way that you lead and manage your people. Your HR policies and procedures should reflect the vision and values of the company, support your team and their way of working and build a strong team culture. 

We help businesses with that work, through our HR Advisor and HR Partnership services where we can become more embedded in their culture. If you would like to discuss your options please get in touch.