Creating an Amazing Company Culture

“What’s the culture like here?” was the question I was asked most as Head of Talent Acquisition for a major retail enterprise. Not surprising that today’s employees consider company culture as important as salary and benefits.

You may have heard about the amazing cultures at companies like Google, Zappos, Chick-fil-A, HubSpot, and Chewy, and you may be thinking “Sure, great places to work BUT they are bigger, more profitable and more famous than us.” Well, a great company culture does not require size, money or fame. Even businesses with a handful of employees can be great places to work. Let’s see how you can be one too.

Make your culture deliberate.

Companies have a culture whether they set out to create one or not. Make sure that yours is working in your favor. One way to ensure this is to proclaim and promote your core values. Zappos, for example, has 10 core values which they promote as “a way of life”. Here are a few of them: service, growth, communication, passion and “a little weirdness”. They widely share these core values with customers and employees alike on their website and in their workspaces.

Outdoor gear provider REI recognizes “Life at REI” as an “environment of respect, diversity, shared values and a passion for the outdoors” according to their website. For the last several years, REI closes all stores on Black Friday to give their employees the day off to enjoy with family and friends, and to give “life to their purpose” of getting more people outside, operating more sustainably, and protecting and creating access to outdoor places.

Your company has a personality.

A company personality should be as easily recognized as an individual’s personality. Which way would you like to be perceived: eager, friendly, serious, humorous, caring? Whatever it is, your personality should appeal to your customers and your employees. It will self-select your success with both targets. The traits that make up the personality of an individual–values, beliefs, interests, experiences, behaviors and habits–are present in companies as well. Oftentimes they are unspoken and unwritten rules for working together. When internalized, this collection of traits can make a company more efficient and help it present a consistent public image.

Company culture is a living thing.

“Set it and forget it” are not words by which to create a company culture. To stay healthy and vibrant a culture needs periodic check-ups. These can take many forms including consistent hiring practices to ensure a good fit, openly sharing your culture and values, recognizing and celebrating achievements both large and small, and keeping communications channels open and frequent. Although the work environment has changed and many offices have hybrid work setting including more remote workers, you can still practice promoting a great culture in addition to the familiar technique of “management by walking around” to encourage open communication. . A great way to simulate this if your current work set up is a hybrid or work-from-home environment, could be with a regular Zoom meeting about cultural issues or perhaps a Slack Channel would better fit your work style.

Is bigger better?

We have mentioned a few companies with thousands of workers and millions of customers but what about smaller companies? How can they win the company culture competition? Here are a few ways to see the big advantages of being small. According to Glassdoor smaller companies offer employees a more hands-on work experience, more flexibility, better access to management and a more personalized career path.

Whatever size company you are or hope to be a part of, embrace its culture and keep it active through open and frequent two-way communication. This blog was updated from a prior CB&D blog. Would you like to talk about company culture? It’s no longer a nice extra to have especially when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. Contact Cisso Bean & Dutch for expert HR guidance today.