The Employee Experience: Corporate Culture

The culture of your company, commonly referred to as corporate culture, is there. Many companies often don’t actively seek out to define their corporate culture; it is something that happens organically. A general feeling or vibe of a workplace, whether positive or negative, high stress or stress free, these are all contributing factors to a company’s corporate culture.

When no one is planning out your company’s corporate culture it will tend to be political and focused on outward results. How much needs to be produced as oppose to looking at investing in the people and making each employee work to their highest efficiency. Many of these work places are also toxic. The strongest personalities will in the end define the culture and those personalities tend to be negative. Leaving you with a negative overall corporate culture. Not exactly the kind of place you want to go to work every day.   Looking at building a corporate culture can be daunting. Many management teams avoid it and even brush it under the rug as hippy dippie hoopla. However, Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For saw revenues increased by an average of 22.2 percent for the 2014 year. Cold hard numbers don’t lie; it’s worth investing in your employees and your corporate culture.

So maybe it is time for you to take it seriously and consider working on your corporate culture.   Now here is the good news, half of your corporate culture is likely already developed. It’s your mission statement. Most companies have an ultimate goal and their mission statement summaries it. “To be the leading international developer of web applications”. That’s great! But when you look around at your employees and your corporate culture you may see it not lining up with this mission statement.   Begin with your mission statement, and everything should stem from that. All of your company policies, work place dress code, even your office coffee selection. Investing in the preferred brand of coffee the majority of your employees enjoy may seem like frivolous spending, but it shows your employees your care and listen.

Small changes can make a large difference in the employees you currently have working for you. And once you have a strong corporate culture you also can use this to attract top talent. Talent that will fit seamlessly with the incredible team you have worked to develop.   Consider creating a Corporate Culture Board similar to your health and safety committee. Half management, half employees and have them look through your policies, procedures, handbooks, anything that could contribute to your corporate culture. And listen to their advice on how the way things have been done in the past are counter intuitive to your mission statement.   Consider some of the strongest companies in the world, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These companies thrive in a major part because of their corporate culture. Employees feel appreciated and genuinely enjoy coming to work every day. They are more likely to give their strongest effort and work most effectively.

Give it a test run and see if you can’t increase your annual revenue by 22.2 percent.

And when you’re ready to grow and hire that new top talent to join your team, contact us and let us find you your next best employee.