The Importance of Creating a Great Company Culture

Every company from small businesses to large corporations have their own culture. Culture is an umbrella term for the shared practices and values of a company’s employees. A company’s culture can be one of its strongest assets or its biggest liability. That’s why it’s so important to examine your company culture.

Corporate culture is becoming more important than ever. It’s rapidly proving to be a ‘must-have’ as opposed to a ‘nice-to-have.’

If building a corporate culture isn’t a priority for you, it should be. These stats show why companies need to prioritize their culture initiatives.

• Peers and colleagues are the #1 reason employees go the extra mile, not money
• Companies with engaged employees outperform those who are not by up to 202%
• More than 49% of all employees aren’t satisfied with their direct supervisor
• Turnover at companies with poor work culture is 48%
• Highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the company they work for
• 11 billion dollars is lost annually due to employee turnover
• There’s 2.5 times more revenue for companies with employees who are highly engaged versus companies with low engagement levels

 

5 Benefits for Great Company Culture

1.   Attract and retain talent

A great company culture attracts talent, and talent can produce better products and results. Employees are more likely to stick around for the long-term if they feel they belong to an organization.

This means better chemistry among your team, fewer hires to deal with, and lower employee turnover. In addition, with turnover costs estimated to range from two times the employee’s annual salary to tens of thousands of dollars, no company can afford to lose employees.

2.   Prompts employees to watch each other’s back

While individual characteristics can be contributing factors, your employees’ behavior towards each other has a lot to do with how the company has shaped them up.

A healthy work culture is one in which encourages employees to watch each other’s back and behave like a family. Such a culture can only be built by walking the talk and by pursuing ethical role modeling.

An organization where squabbling and back-stabbing is the norm, any new employee will adapt to these traits. On the contrary, a new employee who enters a company where there is cohesion among workers, he or she will automatically imbibe such values in their daily life.

3.   Increases loyalty among employees

Culture binds your leadership team and your employees with a set of shared beliefs. It also gives employees a unified goal and purpose. Your employees feel they are contributing to something larger than paychecks.

Moreover, employees tend to be more productive if they are enthusiastic about the companies they work for. The enthusiasm by your employees will also be apparent to your customers and can be an attractive selling point for them. That means more work and more business.

4.   Brand identity builder

Culture is what makes your brand unique. Culture is what tells the world who you are as a brand. Your company’s culture helps forge a bond in which your customers feel a connection with your brand. And the more your customers connect with your brand, the more they’ll want to buy from you.

A great culture also helps define your company’s goals and values.

5.   Culture increases a company’s productivity

A positive culture increases productivity by pushing employees to be more motivated and exceed expectations at work. A positive culture also makes employees much happier. Happiness leads to a 12% spike in productivity, according to a recent study at the University of Warwick.

 

Here are some ways to boost workplace productivity with a positive culture

• Uncover what engagement really means. According to a survey by Gallup, engaged employees drive innovation and feel a connection with their employers.
• Turn on the creative taps. Teams who feel empowered to be creative feel more positive about making a real impact in their workplace and are less afraid of failure. They are also more emotionally vested in their work.
• Make gratitude competitive. Individuals practicing gratitude exercises were more social than those who didn’t, according to research.
• Dish out what’s deserved. Validation matters to people who consistently put 110% into their job.
• Walk a mile in their shoes. This is the ability to understand their experiences, situation, thought process and challenges.

 

Here are a few simple ideas to get you started on building a great corporate culture

1. Strive to promote trust by operating with honesty and transparency. Informal fireside chats, company newsletters, and town hall meetings are some simple ways that small companies can promote trust and transparency.
2. Incentivize culture alignment. If, for instance, creativity and innovation are a priority, reward employee contributions to the development of new products. Likewise, if customer service is a core value, implement mechanisms to measure such service and reward employees for exceptional results. This can apply to any business. Let it be known that your company is dedicated to providing exceptional customer service and invest in their company culture. Here’s an example of a local company that uses their company culture as a selling point.
3. Focus on learning and development at all organizational levels. In order to grow the capabilities of the organization and the talent pool, it’s important to invest in training for employees for further growth and development in their career.
4. Heroes and superstars should be encouraged and celebrated. Rewarding and celebrating achievement will drive others to success.
5. Alignment between business goals and individual objectives is critical to success. Create alignment between values and behaviors.

 

Culture starts with the organization’s leaders

Employees model the behaviors of leaders.

Clearly, company culture is not just a trendy catchphrase. Company culture is central to an organization and how it operates. Without a great company culture, nothing else will work as smoothly.

We hope you found this promoted post as entertaining and informative as we did!