With award season in full swing, it makes sense to see a parade of sports MVPs, Golden Globe winners and Oscar nominees strutting their stuff all over the internet.
But there are other arenas where industry leaders award prizes that you might not hear about – like Merriam-Webster, yes the dictionary, and their practice of naming a “word of the year”. For 2014, their top pick was the word “culture”.
The dictionary actually publishes a top ten list of the most queried words in any given year, based on query traffic and patterns they have established over time. In general “culture” has a surge around the start of each school year and at key points (like finals) during the academic calendar.
But last year, “culture” queries kept coming at consistently higher levels throughout the seasons. It is no surprise to us as office culture, corporate culture and, of course, coffee culture, play such an integral role in our day-to-day operations, as Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster explains, “This year, the use of the word culture to define ideas in this way has moved from the classroom syllabus to the conversation at large, appearing in headlines and analyses across many topics.”
Why culture matters
Because we identify ourselves so closely with our professions, our personal culture is at least loosely entwined with the office culture we engage with at work. This is why at Corporate Essentials, we have made it our mission to help companies big and small maximize their investment in carefully crafted workplace culture.
By providing a solid array of high-quality beverages and snacks to your break room, our team helps you foster a feeling of value among your team. Allowing staff to feel at home as part of a well-supported whole is one of the keys to helping your business achieve its potential in the marketplace.
It might seem strange to hang a lot of import on a few cups of coffee, but the reality is, workers who have to rush in the morning so they can make time to stop and pick up their favorite beverages are not as ready to get down to business when they hit the office.
Putting buzzwords like “value” into your mission statement is one thing, but giving your staff little perks here and there that show you are truly valuable is an entirely different statement. By offering a non-intrusive assist to those people with whom the smooth running of all your operations is entrusted, you are clearly saying, “we truly value your effort” without having to whip out the confetti and a bullhorn every Thursday.
And it is that feeling of value that makes the biggest difference to an office culture where motivational sayings on the wall are just written there, and one where the staff have a buy in to the message because they are living it. The added bonus of having healthier, happier workers is just icing on the cake.
How coffee makes culture happen
At Corporate Essentials, we pride ourselves on helping companies like yours establish world-leading office cultures. We do this by helping you select the right products for the staff at your location(s), making sure that equipment is fit for purpose and ready to go from day with any training that’s needed.
More than this, we work with your in-house teams to be sure that as your staff grow accustomed to the benefit of having an on-site break room stocked with amazing, fresh, local options, no one gets bored.
We provide a flexible ordering system, frequent delivery options and most of all, a team of experts who can help you look at new seasonal options and products to bring into the break room rotation that will keep staff engaged with what is an ongoing benefit to their employment. We can help bridge the gap between your outward-facing “corporate culture” and the office culture that makes the corporate culture possible.
That is why “culture” is always our word of the year. It is everything we do here at Corporate Essentials.
Growing your office culture
The beauty of culture is that it takes on a life of its own. As your employees become more accustomed to the benefits their break room offers, they are able to more readily engage with one another. This means better inter-departmental collaboration, a boost to cross-team problem solving and even an upswing in efficiency for most businesses.
If you are wondering how this happens, a few of the keys to growing office culture are:
- Valuing your teams: you obviously value the effort of your staff – but do they know that? It is one thing to have a meeting and pat everyone on the back, it is another thing altogether to offer a well-stocked break room where the staff can have a say in which products are available. Ask for their feedback, and more important, listen to what they have to tell you about the products on offer.
- Providing breaks: everyone knows that sitting still for too long can lead to health problems, stifled creativity and diminished productivity. The difference between great office culture and an average place to work is that a great culture encourages people to get away from their desk for a quick break every now and then. Studies show that a five-minute break every two hours provides an ideal balance for productivity and refreshment.
- Offering release options: some firms have game rooms, others have on-site massages – the idea is to provide staff with a space in the workplace that allows them to shake it off when stress is starting to get the best of them. A break room with a variety of drink and snack options, a stack of dreamy photo books and a collection of classic board games could be just the ticket for your crowd.
What you are likely to find is that once an office culture is established, it needs a little tender loving care here and there to keep it growing. And that is where partnering with a seasoned office coffee distributor can pay dividends.
If you are interested in the positive impact a good office culture could have on your business, or simply curious about how our team of caffeination experts can help you raise the office culture bar for your workplace, contact us today. Coffee may be what we do best, but culture is a close second.
