How to Encourage Employees to Create Their Own Company Culture

Team members who feel connected to an organizational culture they helped create tend to be happier and more productive.

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To ensure team buy-in and peak productivity, employees should ideally feel connected to and represented by their organization's company culture. This is why employees should be actively involved in developing your corporate culture and even fostering their own company culture within it so as to create a stronger bond with the organization and its core values.

So how can leaders encourage employees to take a more active role in building company culture?

Let them reward each other

"We use a reward program called Bonusly so that our employees can show their teammates love," says Optima Office, Inc founder and CEO Jennifer A. Barnes, talking about how effective it is for building a strong company culture to have employees recognize their hard work and reward each other.

"We give all employees 150 points a month that they can give to co-workers for doing a great job," Barnes explains. This is a great approach because it tends to bring out the best in people -- even more than company rewards. "It's important because it shifts the company culture from just trying to impress the boss, to working for the team," she adds.

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