Culture is the invisible force that is either building your company or tearing it down. For culture to be a positive force, you need to shape, monitor it, and guard. You need to hire based on it and even build systems that support what you want your company culture to be. In this post I’ll share with you four key points:
- What is “company culture” anyway?
- Who cares about culture as long as people get their work done?
- Assessing your company culture
- Building your company
What is “company culture” anyway?
Culture is more than just “a bunch of people getting together to have some fun.” It’s also about how they work together—the values they share, the goals they pursue.
Culture is hard to define but can be felt by all employees when they are at work. It’s something that goes beyond just having a good time, spreading memes, and enjoying free snacks or ping-pong tables. When you build culture into your company it means everyone feels like their input matters; culture is the basic rules of how people work together.
Different companies have different cultural values, like whether or not the company has a family-friendly attitude towards work hours (for example). This can affect how your employees feel about their jobs and ultimately impact results for you as an employer/business owner.
Thriving company culture means that employees are engaged in work they love, share the vision of the company, and work hard to see that vision become a reality. Like a championship sports team, the players(employees) hold one another accountable for results rather than waiting on the coach to handle it in the locker room. Employees in a thriving culture feel that their future dreams and the company’s future are connected win-win or fail-fail, and they fight for the wins when the bosses are not looking. Cheaters can’t hide, and underperformers are rooted out.
In the last five years, how many times did you or a manager have to address an issue dealing with culture?
Who cares about company culture as long as people get their work done?
When I said that culture is the invisible force that is either building your company or tearing it down, I could not have meant it more. Your culture affects morale and productivity. Do you want “clock-watchers” or “needle-movers”? For people who want to do great things for your organization, the culture can either help or hinder them from achieving that goal.
It has been proven that culture can have a direct impact on productivity, retention rates, good hiring practices, and good customer service.
Culture creates an environment where great things are achieved through collaboration between employees across different departments to solve problems or achieve goals. If this isn’t happening at your company, culture could be the reason why.
Assessing your company culture
It’s a common misconception that culture is something you do on the weekends. In actuality, culture is a way of life for your company and an essential part of keeping your employees engaged.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to help gauge your company culture:
When an employee leaves, what do they cite as the reasons? If they say culture, it could be because there are differences in values or communication styles between them and the rest of the team. It might also be due to a lack of development opportunities or compensation gaps (especially if other companies offer more).
What’s the fun factor at your company? I know…it’s called “work” for a reason, but we all need a little fun at work. If everyone dreads Mondays but loves Fridays then this may not be a healthy culture.
When employees leave, do you hear about all the bad things they were doing? This indicates others knew but would not speak up due to lack of care or lack of safety for fear of reprisal. That’s a problem.
Do your employees refer their friends and family for job openings? If they love their job, the company, and the culture they are more likely to refer their closest relationships to join in too.
Do they promote your company on social media or do they try and “keep work life and personal life separate”? Just like referring their friends and family for job openings, employees who engage with your company on social media are not ashamed to be brand ambassadors for you. When they are proud of where they work and what they do, they have no problem sharing it with the world.
It is important to gauge company culture through regular surveys, focus groups, and one on one interviews with key influencers such as clients and stakeholders.
Building your company
The culture at a company has an effect on how people work together and communicate with each other as well as their overall attitude towards work. Culture is not just something you create but also something that happens over time through social interaction within the company’s environment. Once culture sets in it becomes more difficult to change because it is now part of what they are used to doing day-to-day at work.
The key here is making sure there are good habits set in place that promote culture in the workplace.
For culture to be a positive force, you need culture-fit employees. Employees who are culture fit will feel more connected with the values of the company and do their best work because they believe in what they are doing. When employees feel disconnected from the company’s culture, they put less effort into their work and drag everyone else down with them.
Creating culture means taking care to nurture relationships with customers and co-workers alike so that everyone feels like their voice matters. – A strong culture can be the difference between success or failure in today’s hyper-competitive marketplaces.
In Conclusion
The culture of your company is the invisible force that’s either building it up or tearing it down. A positive, healthy company culture not only helps attract and retain top-notch employees but also builds loyalty with customers. Culture can be challenging to define because there are so many factors that go into creating one, but you know when you’re experiencing a positive environment versus a negative one by looking for these signs: people show respect for each other; they feel able to speak their mind without fear of retribution; teams continuously collaborate on projects instead of working in silos; everyone understands what success looks like at their level – whether a new hire or someone who has been around forever. It takes time to build this kind of culture so start taking steps today because you can buy people’s hands but YOU CANNOT BUY THEIR HEARTS.
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