5 Must-haves for a Winning Team Culture!

At Amazee Labs, our goal has always been to have a happy and healthy team, so these are our top 5 must-haves for building a winning team culture: 

1. Communication

Good communication is the foundation of a successful team. In addition to the more obvious communication tools like Slack and Zoom, which help us to stay connected and communicate effectively, no matter where we are, we also use social ‘ice-breaker’ tools like Donut. A Slack app that helps bring people together, Donut facilitates new connections and automates random conversations, encouraging us to have a remote coffee with someone we might not ordinarily chat with during a normal workday. It’s been an effective tool for us - last year we had 84 meetings and exchanged 230 messages - and it’s definitely helped us foster greater affinity amongst the team. 

2. Recognition and Feedback 

Promoting positive reinforcement and recognising outstanding work are critical components of a healthy team culture. 

A recent Gallup survey showed that when recognition hits the mark, employees are:

• 73% less likely to feel burned out
• 56% less likely to be looking or watching for job opportunities
• 44% more likely to be thriving in their life overall
• 5x as likely to feel connected to their culture
• 4x as likely to be engaged
• 5x as likely to see a path to growth at their organisation
• 4x as likely to recommend their organisation to friends and family

At Amazee Labs, we encourage and implement many forms of recognition. It might be a verbal shoutout during a regular team meeting to recognise a team member’s accomplishment, a company-wide Slack message tagging and thanking the amazeeing employee in question for their contribution to a project, or peer-to-peer recognition for a job well done. Regardless of the format, we are strong advocates for celebrating milestones, saying  ‘thank you’, ‘well done’ and ‘we appreciate you!’ 

3. Learning and Development  

Future-proofing digital platforms for our clients is always top of mind, and when it comes to our team, our objective is the same. By continuously investing in our team members, we can ensure that they are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge they need to remain relevant and competitive in our industry. 

With this in mind, Amazee Labs offers each employee a generous Education budget and extra leave days to pursue select courses or conferences that will aid their growth and development. We also encourage regular collaboration for knowledge-sharing. One way we facilitate this is by creating Slack channels dedicated to pertinent topics, as well as organising regular get-togethers such as FronTuesday. This bi-weekly event, organised by our Lead Frontend Developer, Mattia Simonato, provides a forum for frontend developers to exchange ideas, tackle common frontend issues and enhance their expertise.

4. Employee Engagement

When team members are engaged, they feel invested in their work and the success of their team, which leads to greater job satisfaction and a sense of purpose. All of the must-haves discussed in this article are important for building employee engagement, but there are two additional tools we implement to help strengthen it. 

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal-setting framework that promotes employee empowerment. We’ve found that when we’re empowered to set our own goals and make decisions about how to achieve them, we feel a greater sense of ownership and commitment to our work.

And Officevibe, has been a particularly effective tool in helping us not only build better engagement but also measure it. Using their regular feedback and pulse surveys, actionable insights and analytics, and employee recognition tools, Officevibe provides our team leads with proactive steps to foster a positive and engaged work environment.

5. Health And Wellness

It goes without saying that when employees are healthy, feel good, and believe they are supported in their physical and mental health, they’re more likely to have a positive outlook on their work and the company they work for. 

Part of achieving wellness is achieving a healthy work-life balance, and our CEO, Gesche Wirch, is an excellent role model in this regard. She promotes flexible work arrangements and openly manages the competing demands of work and motherhood, setting an example for the rest of the team.

In addition to this, Amazee Labs also offers a Wellness budget which can be spent on anything that nourishes your physical and mental well-being. We recently had great fun joining a virtual walking tour of the Amalfi coast (the goal was to walk 56 kilometres) and along the way we all shared photos of our walks - some enjoyed the Belgian countryside, some the view of Cape Town’s famous Table Mountain, and five of us made it up the Uetliberg in Switzerland! 

If you want to build a strong team culture, consider implementing these must-have measures. Fostering open communication and collaboration, recognising achievements, prioritising employee wellness, and investing in your team can pay off in spades. So take the first step and start building a positive team culture today.

And if you'd like to get to know us better, or have a chat about how we can help future-proof your digital platforms, get in touch - we'd love to hear from you! 🙌