All organizations stand for something, whether it’s a vision or an idea that provides structure and purpose. And despite an individual’s remarkable capabilities, no one person can turn that goal into reality. Having good company culture is the backbone your organization needs to attain the success that you envision. Ensuring that your company has a proper structure allows you to understand better how your employees feel. And in so doing, provide the means to guide your day-to-day, to achieve more success. Good company culture is your company’s great foundation, and this piece will give you a comprehensive guide to achieving it.
Table of Contents
What is Company Culture?
Company culture is the shared values, goals, and behaviors of a business. It’s an integral part of any organization that affects every aspect of the operation. Aside from basically being “how things are done here,” company culture seeps through the perception of your employees and customers. It affects how your employees interact daily, including their work and the company’s decisions.
Good company culture is also the backbone to having a happy workforce. This provides the value your employees need to work well to achieve success. Research by Deloitte indicated that 94 percent of executives and 88 percent of employees see having positive company culture as being vital to an organization’s success. It also shows that employees consider a happy workplace as having strong company culture.
Company culture within an organization may include the following elements:
- Company Mission. A company’s mission represents the main purpose of the enterprise itself. A strong company mission increases employee engagement and the drive to work for a common goal.
- Work Environment. Your employee’s physical space is vital to establishing good company culture. This is why creating the best work environment is crucial to business success.
- Management Style. There are various approaches to managing the workplace, and finding the best that works is vastly essential. The leadership approach you choose can significantly affect your organizational culture.
- Expectations. Employees will always want to perform at their best, and having a good company culture defines what should be expected of them. Providing this needed transparency can take away unwanted pressures for a more stress-free environment.
- Goals. Goals provide the means for businesses to grow, so your employees must know these goals. Understanding goals can drive productivity, especially when incentives are provided.
Importance of Having A Strong Company Culture
Having excellent company culture is vital to every business as it benefits employers and employees alike. These benefits give your people the pride they need in coming to work, leading to positive output. Here are some benefits of having good company culture:
- Recruitment Gains. Great company culture is one strategy many HR professionals use to attract potential employees. It gives your organization a competitive advantage in acquiring interest. Organizations with good company culture attract better talent suited to achieve your goals.
- Job Satisfaction. When organizations provide an employee-centric company culture, it presents an environment where people are happy to work. Employers who focus on the well-being of their employees develop dedicated and much happier workers.
- Transparency. Employees consider transparency at work as the number one factor in employee happiness. A good company culture that provides transparency sets expectations and unity towards achieving the same direction.
- Better Well-Being. Organizational culture affects the working environment and can impact productivity and your employees’ health. High-stress companies become toxic venues, where employees have to deal with healthcare and miss more workdays. When organizations have a good company culture, employees generally have better well-being.
- Work Performance. Numerous studies have shown a direct correlation between having a good company culture and better work productivity. When workers are happy, they become more driven and motivated to do their jobs well.
Benefits of Strong Company Culture for Business Owners
Having strong company culture also presents benefits for business owners. Here are some of these benefits:
- Reduced Costs. Harnessing positive company culture effectively reduces turnover, with employees staying longer where they work the happiest. This lowers expensive costs included in recruiting and retaining employees.
- Increased Engagement. The company’s bottom line is always a priority, and good company culture nurtures its development. An open and healthy work culture leads to more engaged employees who are motivated and collaborate to achieve gains.
- Improved Company Image. Aside from having the benefit of easier recruitment, companies known for their great company culture also enjoy better public perception. Whether by word of mouth or through online review platforms, this attracts customers. Which, in turn, drives more sales.
Organizations that cultivate good company culture nurture a positive environment that focuses on better results. This is a formula that employers need to understand since employees are the backbone of every organization.
What is the Employer's Role in Nurturing a Good Company Culture?
The employer has the most significant role in nurturing good company culture and can impact the organization’s direction. The leadership role of the employer has a direct effect on employee engagement, the working environment, and the company’s overall success. In developing the best company culture, the employer takes point towards the following:
- Developing the Drive for Continuous Growth. All employees have something to learn from each other. From entry-level positions to the most senior levels, shared knowledge among employees leads to better efficiency and performance. As leaders, employers can further employee growth by initiating experiential learning. This type of training can result in 90 percent retention while building better workplace relationships. Shared experience can boost performance and create more engagement within the company.
- Employers Embody Company Culture. Employers have the innate responsibility to demonstrate the company’s vision and represent the company’s culture. They reinforce the behaviors they wish to see at the workplace by being prime examples. Employers provide a sense of vision, purpose, and mentorship to those who work for them and must demonstrate these values accordingly.
- Employers are Responsible for Employee Well-Being. The best way a company can show that it cares for its employees is by developing good company culture. When a company is employee-centric, it nurtures a happier working environment. This leads to employees who perform better and are more engaged. Also, 81 percent of employees are less likely to quit and work attendance increases when companies focus on employee well-being.
What Factors Impact an Organization's Culture
While companies are mostly unique, organizations tend to share a common core of cultural values. Aside from having the same goals of growing and increasing revenues, company culture can often be affected by these several factors:
1. Values
- Outcome Orientation. The company has a focus on gaining results and emphasizes constant achievement.
- People Orientation. Being employee-centric, companies emphasize tolerance, fairness, and respect for the individual employee.
- Team Orientation. The organization encourages collaboration and focuses on providing rewards for results achieved by working together.
- Stability. The company focuses on the sure and predictable path, which relies on security and assured outcomes.
- Innovation. The organization encourages risk-taking and experimentation, providing an off-beat path to achieving outstanding results.
- Detail. The company prefers precision and analytical methods to approaching problems and situations.
- Aggressiveness. Competition can often spur better results, and companies may opt for developing this competitive spirit among employees.
2. Hierarchy
Many organizations tend to prefer more traditional channels of authority and value the degree of hierarchy within the company. Organizations with high levels of hierarchy are more formal and stick to slower-paced manners in the workplace. These cultures have a well-defined organizational structure and expect people to go through more official communication channels.
Moderate levels of hierarchy still have a more defined organizational structure yet are more accepting of working outside formal channels. Low-level hierarchy organizations have loosely defined job descriptions and open the channels for people to challenge authority.
3. Urgency
When an organization has a degree of urgency when it comes to decision-making and innovation, it can impact company culture. Many companies can choose their degree of urgency, while most are dictated by the marketplace’s demand. Company cultures with high levels of urgency often need to push through deadlines to meet the demand quickly.
This high urgency level provides a fast-paced environment with a need to be more decisive. In contrast, companies with a low level of urgency work more slowly, often prioritizing quality over efficiency. As a result, their output is more consistent, as they have more time to focus on the process of work.
4. People Orientation
Organizations with strong people orientation understand that employees drive the company’s productivity and performance. As a result, they tend to put people first when it comes to decision-making. No matter how small or big the role may be, each individual is a vital contributor to the company’s success.
5. Task Orientation
Organizations with strong task orientation put processes and tasks as the main priority. This forms their company culture, as these tasks define the organization’s decision-making. This orientation to company culture leans towards efficiency and quality being the driving force to productivity and performance.
6. Functional Orientation
Organizations with strong functional orientation places emphasis on specific functional areas. They believe that functional areas drive the organization and form their culture around it. These may include operations, marketing, research and development, and others. For example, a hospitality company may focus on services and operations and base its choices on how it may affect these functions.
How Good Company Culture Can Bring Your Brand Success
The culture of a company can significantly define an organization’s path to achieving success. Successful companies often remain grounded in the reasons why they started the business. It all relies on simple components such as aligning workers to shared values that rally everyone together. Good company culture leads organizations to success by:
1. Bringing the Company Mission to Heart
Good company culture establishes priorities that are aligned with the company’s goals. When good company culture is realized, employees can relate to their identity and purpose. This encourages them to keep their core mission at heart and are more likely to be inspired by it. This provides the company with a more focused and more capable organization.
2. Attracting the Talent You Want
Talent is what keeps organizations stay afloat, and attracting the talent you need can often be a challenge. You can allot a budget for job ads, professional recruiters, and headhunters and still not find the personnel you want. The fact is, having the reputation of good company culture brings in the talent that fits your organization.
People who relate to your company values will naturally seek you out and apply themselves. The most talented applicants often prefer an organization they already have an affinity with, and company culture is critical.
3. Employee Retention
Excessive employee turnover is a hindrance to building a successful company. It takes a lot of time and resources to find suitable candidates, train them, and assimilate them into your business. It also can cost a lot of money while lowering overall morale. Strong company culture leads employees who show up to work to be happier and more motivated. The stronger the culture of a company is, the fewer chances that its employees might opt to leave.
4. Develop Brand Identity
Most companies develop unique cultures that generally attribute to their brand identity. This helps establish a distinct reputation for your brand, which becomes known to customers. For example, an outgoing company can have an open and welcoming culture, which is ideal if you aim to be friendlier to customers. Unique cultures provide an edge over brands and help you rise above the competition.
5. Nurturing Passion
Good company culture doesn’t just provide a better working environment. It can also increase the love employees feel for your organization. It can make them feel genuinely invested in their roles and raise the excitement and passion for what they’re doing. Having passionate workers increases productivity and relates to higher employee satisfaction.
Disadvantages of Weak Company Culture
Organizational culture significantly shapes how your employees see your company and how others see it. Having weak company culture can often lead to issues at the workplace that hamper growth and development. These lead to disadvantages such as:
1. Lack of Focus
Companies with weak company culture often neglect their own business plan, if they even have one. Not having a reliable plan means that the organization isn’t guided by goals shared with employees. This leads to disorganization without having priorities and expectations for the company to drive towards.
2. Poor Motivation
Making money should never be the sole motivation of your employees. A strong culture can provide meaningful motivation for your employees. Without good company culture, employees don’t feel the pride to motivate them to work better. This lack of pride can permeate within the company, and poor motivation can undoubtedly lower your gains. Poor motivation can also be easily spotted by customers and clients, which is certainly not what you would want.
3. Disassociated Departments
Companies with weak cultures tend to develop departments that work independently of each other. This disassociation hampers collaboration and development, which should be valuable goals for companies to achieve. Without strong company culture, employees end up focusing too much on their individual roles and neglect sharing in a common goal.
4. Us Versus Them Mentality
Weak company culture often amplifies work status or generational differences within an organization. This “us versus them” mentality hampers them from working together for the good of the company. Instead of learning from each other and sharing common experiences, they end up polarizing against each other, which never helps at all.
Impact of Weak Company Culture on Society
While good company culture lays down the path for an organization to achieve success, its absence can impact local communities and beyond. Conversely, negative workplace culture can affect employees’ lives and spill over to affecting society. Here’s how weak company culture can impact society:
1. Well-Being and Health
Having weak company culture can significantly affect an employee’s health and well-being. This negativity in the workplace can lead to mental health concerns. Being negligent of well-being in the workplace can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. This can spill over to affect productivity, employee relations, and family dynamics at home.
2. Economic Cost
While it may seem that the effects of company culture are confined only within the workplace, it can also affect the economy. In the UK, a report showed that up to $27.52 billion per year is lost due to toxic workplace culture. Poor economic performance can have enormous implications for society.
Businesses with weak company culture run the risk of failing altogether. This can affect jobs and spending directly, which ultimately may lead to recessions. This is why it’s vital to identify weak company culture to implement positive change and better shape your company’s future.
3. Loss of Trust
Weak company culture is a venue where distrust grows. This unethical behavior destroys trust, which is the better foundation for interpersonal relations. When employees are disengaged, they develop a lack of trust among other employees and departments. This behavior of lacking trust and empathy spills into life outside of work and affects the community we live in. Businesses also have the responsibility of nurturing employees to be good members of society and our community.
Elements of Good Company Culture
Creating a good company culture is a life-long process. The business landscape is constantly changing, and brands should keep up with the trends and continue to innovate to get ahead of their competitors. As you develop a unique company culture, remember these core elements that can guide you:
1. Vision and Values
Every company’s culture is based on the ultimate goal of the organization. This is primarily defined in the company’s vision and purpose statement. Therefore, it’s vital to identify the company’s mission, purpose, and values you support to determine your approach to building company culture.
2. Operations
Operations are the processes that the job entails aligned with your company’s mission. They can range from acquiring talent, how they are trained to how they eventually handle customers. Aligning operations with the company’s purpose is vital to ensuring that the organization fulfills its vision and values.
3. Leadership
Employers and managers are leaders of the company that serves as prime examples of the company culture. Senior leadership paves the path for how the rest of the employees will act. This is why leaders of the organization must embody the company culture themselves.
4. Communication
Communication is more than how people talk to each other. It’s also how information and ideas are shared within your organization. Building trust within your team makes it easier to communicate, thus making it easier to innovate and solve problems. Developing good company culture lets people feel more engaged with each other to achieve a company’s mission and purpose.
5. Learning and Development
Company culture must be ingrained at the start of every employee’s journey. This is why training should always fulfill the company’s values and purpose. When learning and development are nurtured in the organization, it generates higher productivity and innovation. It also encourages better retention and appreciation from your employees.
6. Recognition
Recognition in the workplace goes far beyond providing bonuses and extra benefits for your employees. Providing recognition allows your employees to see that you value them and their contributions to the organization’s success. Creating a culture of recognition in the workplace is a continuous, timely, fair, and personal effort that makes the work relevant and more worthwhile.
7. Environment
The working environment means more than just the physical space to do the job. It also refers to the atmosphere and energy manifested in these spaces and the mindset it draws from your employees. Therefore, the workplace environment directly influences employee motivation and happiness, which dictates productivity and efficiency. This is why it’s essential to expand your concept of the environment beyond the physical space to further positivity towards achieving gains.
8. Well-Being
Company culture emphasizes an employee’s experience beyond their actual work and can affect their physical and mental health. Therefore, an employee’s well-being should be nurtured within the company culture to achieve employee happiness. This, in turn, lowers absenteeism, increases productivity, and furthers employee engagement.
How to Create Good Organizational Culture
Here are some tips you can use to help develop good company culture:
1. Build a Good Foundation
In creating good company culture, it’s imperative to start with your beliefs and experiences and align those with your vision and values for your company. Building a foundation with these particular core principles makes it a natural part of doing things. When these principles that move towards your goals and vision are aligned, all your employees become ingrained with them, enriching your company culture.
2. Create Goals
Every organization with a company culture needs to have clear goals in place. Creating company goals with your employees provides everyone something they can all work towards. These goals become part of your company’s vision and instill more purpose other than receiving a regular paycheck.
3. Provide Purpose
Companies perform better when they have a clear sense of purpose. Having purpose and meaning is now more important than ever within the workplace. Employees need purpose in their work to develop job satisfaction. Meaning and purpose can be derived from a company’s mission statement and core values, which are then relayed to the employees. Employees who understand their specific roles and how they contribute to the company’s successes work with the clarity and purpose that they need.
4. Initiate Company Culture Growth
Employees have their own set of experiences and insights that may help you transform your own company culture. This can help enhance and develop a culture in the workplace that constantly grows. Simply asking your employees what practices and changes need to be done to improve the work environment can go a long way. These suggestions can lead to a more positive, appropriate, and transformative company culture.
5. Strengthen Positivity
Good company culture is founded on positivity, and this should always be encouraged in the workplace. Employers should promote positivity daily, leading by example through simple acts of gratitude and respect. This provides an environment where everyone remains engaged even in more pressing situations. In addition, maintaining positive behavior in the workplace takes away unnecessary stress and promotes teamwork and collaboration.
6. Nurture a Social Environment
An essential element of good company culture is workplace relationships. Employees should know their colleagues and foster good opportunities for collaboration and teamwork. This allows company culture to cultivate and grow. In addition, employers should provide opportunities that further social interactions in the workplace. This includes team-building activities, regular team meals, and the like to nurture these relationships.
7. Focus on Employee Wellness
Healthy employees should always be a priority for every organization. Employees have to be at their best, physically, mentally, and emotionally, so that they can contribute to productivity and positive company culture. Employee wellness is a significant element of good company culture, and companies need to focus on resources, on-site healthcare tools, and other opportunities to maintain their employees’ good health.
8. Listen
Building good company culture requires organization leaders to listen to their employees truly. Being heard is one good indicator of having a good company culture, and employees take this into regard. Eighty-six percent of employees feel that management listens to them when the company they work for has a strong culture.
Examples of the Best Company Culture
Company culture can reflect an organization and its people, highlighting its best features to be admired and learned from. Here are some examples of companies with incredible cultures:
1. Zoom Video Communications
Zoom Video Communications is a platform known for its video and audio conferencing services, collaboration, chat, and webinars. The platform has exploded in the last few years, reaching an average of ten million daily meeting participants using Zoom.
Zoom maintains a close-knit culture, establishing a “happiness crew” that grows with the company. Teams come together regularly to volunteer and participate in philanthropic activities. New hires worldwide are brought to San Jose, California, where the company is based, to learn about the company and build relationships right from the start.
Also, Zoom makes a continuous and conscious effort to evolve its company culture by asking potential employees who motivate them. The company then hosts events for people to bring their main motivator along. When the company listens to its employees, it allows the culture to evolve and adapt, fostering positivity all the way.
2. Riskmethods
Riskmethods is a supply chain management software company that operates from the US, Germany, and Poland. Being from many places, they have built a company culture that highlights the internationally diverse cultures within the organization. They offer employee exchange programs to ensure their teams collaborate well across borders.
This allows employees to visit other offices and spend time with their colleagues in person. Even as the company grows, they develop culture early on, with new hires experiencing company-wide lunches to welcome them. Riskmethods encourages learning and development within its teams by celebrating their different regional cultures and bridging them together.
3. PatientPop
PatientPop is a company that offers healthcare providers a platform to grow their practices through modernization. Their platform provides solutions, such as SEO help, social media advertising, telehealth adaptation, front-office automation, and patient review portals.
A big part of PatientPop’s company culture is maintaining transparency. This ensures that employees have the information they require, identify what is going well, and learn ideas for improvement. In addition, their company culture emphasizes performance and merit over tenure, creating a more transparent environment.
Conclusion
Building good company culture takes time and requires hard work to establish. It’s vital to understand that company culture is a practice that becomes innate to each employee if the proper foundation is placed. Not only will you provide your employees with a working environment they enjoy being in, but a space they can all thrive in. Once good company culture is initiated, the benefits of striving to achieve one become part of the journey the employee and the employer will both cherish.
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