A strong company culture is the key to retaining top talent, no matter what industry you’re in. But a good culture is not something you can fake by simply plastering a motto on your door.
A positive corporate culture is fostered from the top down and nurtured all the way to the bottom. Every new employee should get an instant feel for your company’s true culture and that feeling should continue through their onboarding process and beyond until they become another champion of your company and its work environment. After all, your employees are your best employer brand ambassadors. So, how can you ensure your company culture is good? How can you fix a culture problem, or create a new one?
Whether you have one already or you’re in the midst of creating one, decide what you want your company culture to be. It’s too vague to simply say you want your culture to be good. It has to be specific. Think about the values that really matter to you, your brand, your product, your message. For example, the RECRUITERS values are to be honest, open, driven, creative and fun and these values are engrained in everything we do.
Once you’ve decided what your culture and values should be, set up meetings with your employees, starting with your top managers and continuing right down to your junior level employees. Ask them if they believe working at the company truly reflects the values and culture you hope it does. Do you want your brand to embody creativity? Do you have an internal company culture that makes your employees feel creative? There is no one better to tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong than your own employees. These meetings will give you a sense of what’s working and what’s missing.
Once you know what the problems are, take a look at the behaviours of your top-level staff. If you’re the managing director, that includes you too. In fact, it includes you and anyone else at your level above anyone else. If you want your culture to encourage new ideas and believe in a flat organisation, do you have an open-door policy for your own office? Do you allow employees to come directly to you with ideas? Culture comes from the top, so before you start dictating to your managers how they should instill a particular culture in their own team members, ask yourself if you’ve been successfully instilling that culture in them. When in doubt, always bring it back to the values and culture you want your company to have. Then, pretend you’re a start-up with just three employees. How would you make sure they feel those values? Once you’ve figured that out, you can expand it to your actual company’s size.
Behaviour is a difficult and vague issue to correct, but it’s also the biggest hurdle to overcome when it comes to correcting company culture. This is why it must be prioritised, because it will take the longest to take effect. However, once those systems are in place, you can take a look at the benefits you offer employees, which should be much easier to fix and will see instant results.
Do you want corporate social responsibility to be a key part of your culture? Examine how big of a role charities and good causes come into play with your business. Do you want learning and upskilling to be a key component of your business? Consider offering incentives, discounted courses or additional annual leave for workshops that encourages employees to upskill. The benefits don’t have to cost the company a lot of money, they simply have to speak to the values and culture you want to implement.
Like I said, your employees can be your biggest advocates if you give them a positive experience. So, when you’re starting your culture overhaul, invite some employees to join a culture committee. Get them involved in improving the culture, seek their input and then allow them to drive the culture throughout the business and ensure it doesn’t go off the rails. Creating an authentic company culture is important but maintaining it is the secret to improving employee experience, retaining your top talent and increasing company performance.
Find out more about building an effective employer branding strategy and how RECRUITERS can help your business.
Group of workers photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
