5 Tips to Build a Workplace Culture with Katherine at New Media Retailer
Participants:
Francesca Halberg – General Manager/CPO of New Media Retailer
Katherine Decker – Customer Service Manager of New Media Retailer
Video Transcript
Francesca (00:02):
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for the New Media Retailer Podcast. My name is Francesca, and today we are actually gonna shake things up a little bit and do things a little differently. Instead of being joined with a member of a retail store, I’m actually joined with Katherine Decker, who is the customer service manager at New Media. Katherine, thank you so much for joining us.
Katherine (00:25):
Thank you for having me. Hello, everybody.
It’s important to keep up a good workplace culture while remote
Francesca (00:28):
We’re excited. So to give everybody a little bit of context about today’s conversation, I would say stemming back pretty close to exactly two years ago today, like so many businesses, we had a pretty drastic change where our workplace went from being 99% in an office space where we were able to often come together as a group to collaborate, share ideas, things like that, to pretty much overnight going almost 100% remote. That was a big shift, I think, to put it mildly. It was definitely a drastic change for us. I would say, you know, pre-COVID, our culture was one of the things we prided ourselves on the most. We had just a really good system where we were so often coming together to collaborate. We were doing one on one meetings between a manager and a team member every single month.
Francesca (01:34):
We would come together and have group lunches, things like that. And it was just so easy and convenient because we were all together and shifting to overnight going completely remote, it had a big impact on our culture. And I don’t think one that we realized until probably like a year had really set in and we realized like, maybe this isn’t gonna change any time soon. We really have spent a lot of time over the past few months, but specifically in Q1 of this year figuring out and defining what our culture means online. And through that, we’ve had really interesting conversations amongst our team. We’ve had really interesting conversations with retail stores, really interesting conversations with other colleagues that work elsewhere. So not, you know, just at New Media Retailer, but with family, with friends, and have just tried to gain a perspective about what workplace culture means to different people. So long story, not at all short, we put together five tips that we wanted to share with you that might help you build a culture. We feel like we put these together based on conversations that we’ve had with a lot of different types of industries, people, job types, things like that, so we feel like these are fairly universal but just wanted to share. I just talked for a very long time. So, Katherine, is there anything you wanna add before we kick it off?
Katherine (03:06):
Sure. You know, I think regardless of what business you’re in, your culture and how you treat your employees is always gonna be important. The job force is very competitive these days, so keeping employees, or making the ones that you have feel valued and feel part of that culture is always really important. And I think it’s a good leg up when either hiring or keeping employees as well.
Francesca (03:32):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You know what I think the reality is so many people have to work, right? Like everybody has bills, expenses, whatever, it may be. A lot of people have to work. So how can you make your place of work a place people want to come to, a place that they’re excited and they feel like they are contributing and they’re not constantly looking for jobs on their phone as soon as they get home you know, or wherever it may be. So, it’s definitely super important to help retain employees, but also to attract new talent as well. Like you said, I think those are really good points.
1. Share positive feedback
Francesca (04:09):
Absolutely. So without further ado, our five tips. One is really easy. Honestly this is one that can really directly benefit a business as well as really directly benefit the employees, and that’s share positive feedback as you get it. In our business here, we do work with a lot of customers, and from time to time, our customers will take time to share their positive feedback, whether that’s an interaction they had with sales or with customer service. They’ll send an email or they’ll post a Google review or a Facebook review. As a business, we have found a lot of value in taking time to share those amongst the entire team. It’s so important for employees to feel that value and know exactly when they’re doing a really good job.
Francesca (05:01):
Taking the time to share that just goes, you know, such a long way. So businesses, you know, if you’re a retail business, maybe you don’t have an opportunity to have a company wide meeting, but maybe you can print out reviews as you get them and share them amongst the team and make sure that they are getting recognized. It’s such a free, simple, quick thing that you can do. But also, as we’ve talked about a lot in our marketing tips and through these podcasts as well, reviews are really beneficial to you online. So if you can help encourage people leaving those there and then take the time to share them after the fact, you know, that’s super huge.
Katherine (05:40):
And just to add there, too, it’s always really nice, especially if you’re having like a really busy day or you’re very sidetracked. An angry customer may come in, and hearing that positive feedback is a great reset to either your day or just reassurance to know like what you’re doing is working. And so it is always nice to have that recognition and hear it as well.
Francesca (06:06):
Yeah, definitely. And like, you could certainly take it one step further, and create a little prize out of it. You know, have a little contest of like, whoever can get the most positive reviews either in person or through like a written feedback, maybe in the store or an online review. I mean, you could assign a prize with that. Whoever gets the most in a month gets a gift card or a hundred bucks, whatever it may be, whatever financial contribution you make there, that certainly could go a long way too, but not required. Sometimes it’s fun to make a little competition out of things, we’ve found.
Katherine (06:45):
I was just gonna say a little friendly competition.
Francesca (06:51):
But do you wanna take number two?
2. Conduct annual reviews
Katherine (06:52):
Sure. So the second little tip we had was having annual reviews with your employees. My favorite little tagline is “I can’t fix a problem that I don’t know exists,” so having that open opportunity to talk to your employees really sets up dialogue for them to maybe share something that could be frustrating or they think could be fixed. Also as a management position, it also gives you the opportunity to discuss with the employee something that they could improve on to make systems within the business go smoother. It really just gives you that opportunity to create ongoing success. And always asking for feedback too, so, you know, asking what can we do better? It helps open that dialogue and really like sets the tone, I guess again.
Francesca (07:52):
Yeah, definitely. I think one thing that took our annual reviews from good to really valuable was when in advance, we created a template of like, “Hey, here is what we expect. And these are the things, these are the different areas that we are going to be providing feedback to you on an annual basis.” I feel like sharing that in advance really helped a lot of people to know what our expectations were. I think I’ve talked about this in the podcast before, but my parents own a small business and something that is so funny that we always say is like, “It could be as simple as cleaning the bathroom.” Like the expectation of what a clean bathroom is means very different things to maybe a manager than it does a boy. Maybe one is super, super clean and one’s like, “Oh yeah, it’s picked up. We’re good to go.” Well, if you don’t provide, you know, like, “Hey, here’s our guideline for what our expectation is,” then no one can be successful because they don’t know what they don’t know. I feel like that’s helped us a lot.
Katherine (08:58):
Yeah, definitely. And it gives that guideline of “Oh, that’s what I should be doing.” You know, how can an employee expect what they’re gonna be rated on if they don’t have that in front of them?
Francesca (09:12):
Totally. Yeah. So this kind of goes even back to number one again, and looping it in with number two, but like sharing consistent feedback, I think is really helpful for an employee to know exactly what they’re doing well. There is not ever one employee who’s going to do everything perfectly, so when it does come time to need to have those difficult conversations – and maybe that isn’t in the review about areas of improvement or things like that – but when they know what they’re doing well, it makes it much easier for them to accept the constructive feedback of what they can improve on instead of feeling like, “Oh my gosh, is there anything I’m doing well, I now I’m feeling like super overwhelmed.” You know, they kind of know like, “Okay, I got my good things. I got my one or two areas of improvement and I’m good to go,” you know?
Katherine (10:08):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I kind of touched on the next point. But we can definitely elaborate if you wanna go to the third point.
3. Ask for feedback
Francesca (10:18):
Yeah, definitely. So our third tip for building a culture, and this one is again, a really simple, free, easy one. But if you’re looking to build your culture, just start with asking your team for feedback, like “Hey, what do you like about working here and what maybe don’t you like?” And while it may be difficult for you to hear that feedback and they may feel a little uncomfortable sharing it, some of the things they don’t like creates a really good template for you to work off of to kind of create a culture that, you know, you can commit to because that’s the most important thing. And sometimes, Katherine, we have fallen short. We’ll make commitments in advance and be really good at it for like a month or two months, and the other things get busy. The commitment is one of the most important things. So starting with your team and just getting their organic feedback can be super helpful.
Katherine (11:15):
Yeah. And again, just having that open communication because if there are problems, we can’t fix a problem that we don’t know exists.
Francesca (11:24):
Okay. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, just start with your team and you might be surprised by things that they like. I feel like one of the things I was most surprised by when we started asking these questions was like the dress code. Like to me, I didn’t realize that that would be something people would find valuable in the workplace. But because we had gone from suit and tie and business attire to very casual and “Hey, like come with in whatever you’re comfortable in like jeans, whatever,” people loved that. They really liked that. That was such a surprising one, such an easy change that took no work at all. But yeah, that one, like it was so easy.
Katherine (12:13):
Yeah, that’s good feedback. I just got something popping up on my screen.
Francesca (12:19):
Oh that’s OK.
4. Fun internal communication
Katherine (12:21):
So the fourth tip we had was to keep fun internal communication, like having internal polls or we just had super bowl squares, maybe having that again, like little friendly competition is always something that’s encouraging to staff and makes them excited to come to work. We started doing little water cooler talks, so we pick a topic every week. We also did a poll for if we’re a dog or cat office, and it really got people interested in submitting their responses because it was like, “Okay, we’re a dog office,” and then, “Oh no, now somebody submitted their cats, so now we’re a cat office again.” And you know, we learned a lot about each other too, and it’s always a good opportunity from there to share on social media. And it helps you make that connection with your customers as well. And if your staff’s excited about it, most likely your customers would be excited about it too. I think it comes full circle and being a small business, your customers really interact in a different way and get to know the staff as well.
Francesca (13:33):
Yeah. Definitely familiar. I mean, that’s totally free, and such an easy, creative thing. Like ask your staff, “Are you a dog person or a cat person?” and boom, right there, you have good organic content to share on social media. That is the reason people shop local. They know your employees, they feel comfortable with your employees, they know they’re knowledgeable, but just put a little spin on it and make it fun. These are members of the community, these are faces people know, and so just utilizing that to your advantage to create organic engagement on your page is such a fun thing to do too. We started doing water cooler talks, and again, it’s a little different because we have, you know, an office setting that’s eight to five, but once a month we come together and I just had said like, “Yeah, let’s come together for 15 minutes.”
Francesca (14:30):
And Katherine was like, “Let’s just assign like a non-work related topic and that’s what they’re gonna talk about for 15 minutes just to spark the conversation”. And then from there, you know, it can go wherever. Last month we did “What’s your least favorite household chore?”
Yeah.
Or like just a house to-do, because mine wasn’t really a chore, but it was like a house to-do. I had actually shared that on Instagram, you know, I just was like talking about a new thing we were doing, and I got so much feedback from people being like, “Wait, this is such a good idea. It’s so easy. I definitely wanna do this at my job. It’s just a good way to get the conversation going.” So while you may not have an opportunity again for your entire team to come together on a zoom call or something and ask these questions, like if you have a back office or a whiteboard or something, you know, anywhere that like everyone can see just jot the question down and let your team like post their responses cuz it does get really fun.
Katherine (15:33):
Yeah. It also, I think it gives a really good opportunity for your staff to bond outside of work-related stuff. You know, if somebody has the same answer, like, “Oh I hate this chore,” you’re also just learning something about your coworker outside of work, and it does create that good bond to and have a good work environment.
Francesca (15:54):
Yeah. That was such a good idea that you had. What was yours? Because we were in different groups. We break off into that small group. What was yours?
Katherine (16:01):
Mine was cleaning the toilet.
Francesca (16:03):
Oh that.
Katherine (16:04):
I mean, does anyone like that? No,
Francesca (16:08):
Mine was cooking dinner. Like it happens every day. You have to do this. I hate it. I despise cooking dinner, and I’m not good at meal planning, so every day I’m like, “Yeah. Oh shoot. What are we gonna have for dinner? It’s 4:45. I need to start thinking about this.” Like I just, I hate it, but toilet took probably a very close second.
Katherine (16:33):
Yeah.
Francesca (16:35):
But yeah, even there, like Katherine said, it creates an opportunity to allow staff to talk about things that are not like, “Gosh, I’m tired from stocking these shelves.” or like “Yeah, I’m working overtime again,” or you know, whatever it is. You can laugh. Like it’s fun.
Katherine (16:52):
Yeah.
5. Find opportunities to come together
Francesca (16:54):
And our fifth and final tip to build a culture is to try to find opportunities where your team can come together that maybe don’t have a work-related agenda. An easy one is like, “Hey, we’re doing, you know, a lunch. We’re gonna have food brought in on the 15th this month. So, you know, if you’re working, that’s great. If you’re not working, and you wanna pop in for lunch, we’d love to see you.” But just create natural opportunities for people to do that. They’re encouraged to socialize and not talk about work things and kind of step away for a little bit from the floor or from their desk or whatever it may be. This one is our one tip that does have a little bit of a financial commitment. Obviously, you know, paying to get food brought in, maybe you go to happy hour, or something, whatever it may be. But just create an opportunity for the staff to get to know each other personally, because it’s fun to work with friends.
Katherine (17:54):
I think it’s nice. Like it’s a nice reset too, when you can step away and you can create that bond or you can have those conversations with coworkers but not be sidetracked by stocking shelves. You do get like that reset and get that like re-appreciation for where you work too.
Francesca (18:12):
Yeah, definitely. Those are our five tips. One: share positive feedback. Two: annual reviews. Three: ask for feedback. Four: create opportunities for fun, internal communication. Five: a group gathering. Whether that be like a lunch, or happy hour, whatever it may be. These are like quick, easy tips that you could apply at any time. I do think it’s really important for managers or owners of a business to come together and kind of have a conversation about core values, or maybe create a sunset, idyllic picture of what your culture could look like, and maybe that’s your farther out goal. But in the meantime, you know, these are quick things that you could start to implement at any time. You certainly don’t need to do all five. But maybe there’s one or two that you could start to implement this month or next month. And let your team know that this is the goal, you know, you’re trying to create a culture that they wanna be a part of. So yeah, I think that kind of covers the tips by Katherine. Anything else you wanna add in general about just creating a culture?
Katherine (19:28):
I think the only thing is just, you know, employee retention, like creating that culture really helps keep those great employees and also just makes for a happy work environment, which we all want.
Francesca (19:41):
Definitely. And something that we had touched on earlier, but like I don’t wanna go without kind of honing in on consistency. It is so important for your culture, for employee retention, for employee engagement, and to use it as a tool to attract new employees. But the most important thing is whatever it is, you commit to writing it down so that you can continue to commit to it, and so that you can be consistent, because these are fun. But if you do them for one or two months and then stop in a few months, people are gonna look back and be like, “Yeah, remember when our culture was important?” You want them to feel like, “Gosh, I work for a place that is taking the time to find value in this.” And nothing that we talked about takes a significant amount of time. But whatever it is, you’re gonna commit to it and be consistent about it.
Awesome.
Well that covers our five top tips to build a culture. Thank you so much for joining us today. Check back soon for another New Media Retailer Podcast, for sure. Katherine, thanks so much for joining today.
Katherine (20:53):
Thanks for having me
Francesca (20:55):
Have a good day.
Katherine (20:57):
Bye. You too.