In today’s competitive landscape, company culture is more important than ever. It can be the deciding factor in whether or not top talent chooses to work for your organization, and it can play a big role in employee satisfaction and retention. But what exactly is company culture? And how can you create a thriving culture in your own company?
What is company culture and why is it important?
Your company culture is your workplace personality. It’s very much where the heart and soul of your company identity begins. It’s how you interact with your colleagues, customers, and clients and it’s shaped by your company values, traditions and habits. Culture is important because it can help to create a sense of community within a workplace and make employees feel like they are part of something larger than themselves. A strong company culture can help you attract and retain great employees, inspire customer loyalty, and boost productivity.
How to create a thriving company culture in your own organization
A healthy company culture promotes community and cooperation, while an unhealthy one can foster divisiveness and negative competition. While creating a thriving company culture may seem like a daunting task, here are 4 simple steps you can take to start promoting a healthy community in your workplace.
Hire for culture fit
When you hire someone who shares your company’s values, you’re not just getting someone who can do the job – you’re getting someone who will help shape your company culture for years to come. It’s tempting to hire the person who checks all your technical skill set boxes, but if their core values do not align with yours it won’t be a great fit long term. Communicate your core values in your job description and assess for them in your interview process.
Investing in employee development
Employee development is one way to invest in your company culture and show your employees that you value their growth and development. Survey your employees and seek to understand what they would like to learn. In a recent Copysmith employee survey we learned that our team was less interested in sharpening technical skills in their current role and more interested in learning about leadership, business and marketing.
Encourage collaboration and transparency
It’s important to be open and honest about the company vision and what challenges you are facing, especially as it changes over time. This transparency opens doors to resolving those challenges and reaching solutions quickly. The best ideas for improving your product, service or business operations are within your own team. Create spaces to encourage feedback to flow in all directions, not just one way. We have a slack channel dedicated to product feedback that everyone can contribute to, we also collect employee satisfaction feedback anonymously so we can understand how we are doing from an organizational standpoint.
Promote work/life balance
A recent study by Glassdoor showed that 70% of employees would leave their current job for one with better work/life balance. With this in mind, it’s clear that promoting a healthy work/life balance is essential to attracting and retaining top talent. Some practical ways you could do this would be to offer unlimited PTO, flexible work hours, remote or hybrid work environments, etc. But don’t stop there. Check in on your team, investigate how long it’s been since they’ve actually taken PTO and encourage them to use this benefit. Create digital workspaces (like Slack or Discord) so internal communication remains effortless in remote or hybrid environments. Practice boundaries and schedule send slack and email messages to be seen by the recipient in their working hours.
Whether you’re managing an organization of thousands or just getting started, it’s vital to keep your culture a top priority. Utilizing the tips above sets you up for success to put your employees first.