In today’s competitive talent market, companies are turning up the volume on workplace benefits to stand out from the crowd, from free dry cleaning to pet-friendly offices and mortgage down payments. When joblessness is at an all-time low and you’re competing for the brightest talent with the Googles and Amazons of the world, it makes sense to point out the all the cool perks you offer to show how you’re unique. There’s just one problem: While a greater emphasis is being placed on these attractive perks, they’re all too often being confused for a company’s culture or, even worse, being used as a Band-Aid solution to cover up a lack of defined culture.
As business leaders have come to understand how important developing a strong company culture is to an organization’s bottom line, it’s become a greater focus. In fact, research shows employees value “culture” and “career growth” almost twice as much as they value “compensation and benefits” when selecting an employer. But, building a great culture first requires clarity around what culture actually is.
So how can a company define what their culture is in a way that maps back to business goals and motivates and inspires employees?
What Company Culture Really Is
Every organization has a culture specific to it, whether leadership is managing it or not. A company’s culture can seem like an abstract idea, but think of it like a company’s unique identity. It needs to be defined in a very simple and accessible way, so everyone from the CEO all the way down to the junior-most employee can understand it.
Culture is really the small set of values that determine how you do things in your organization on a daily basis. These values should drive the three main buckets of business behavior: how you communicate, what you prioritize and what gets rewarded.
To identify the cultural values that define how your organization operates, first take a step back and consider the three to five simple values that are most fundamental to your organization. Through my experience, I’ve found that this is the sweet spot of the number of values employees respond to — any more is too many and employees won’t remember them; any fewer and employees start to gloss over them because they don’t think they’re relevant.
Make sure each value is simple, actionable and unique to your company. For example, if you prioritize top-notch customer service in your company, a value could be: “Devotion to our customers with a zealous attitude.” It’s actionable, succinct and shows the distinctive personality of the company (we have a zealous attitude!) to make it stand out.
It’s important to know, when defining company culture, that the specific values you identify within your organization doesn’t determine culture success. There is no single “right” culture. Any set of values can predict a healthy, thriving culture — so long as everything you do within your organization is aligned with your unique values. That’s the true measure of success.
What Makes Corporate Culture Fail
Sometimes the easiest way to understand what something is is to talk about what it isn’t. We already discussed how perks are an output of culture, not culture itself. You want your perks to be consistent with your culture, but they don’t make up your culture. Company culture also isn’t successful when you try to mimic the culture of another organization. A company that becomes a culture chameleon — changing its own DNA based on what others are doing — won’t work in the long run because it will be replicating values that don’t necessarily align to its own people and business objectives.
But the biggest way company cultures fail is by hiring people who aren’t a great fit or who don’t understand the culture from the start. Don’t fall into the trap of hiring just anyone because you need to fill a position; all too often I see managers relying solely on experience and skills, and not considering enough whether the candidate is a good cultural fit. Science shows our core values and beliefs are fairly hard-wired by the time we hit adulthood, and they drive our behavior more than any other factor regardless of whether we’re at home or work. So, unfortunately, if a person isn’t a good cultural fit they’re not likely to thrive within their organization, no matter how talented they are.
Culture Alignment = High Engagement = Business Success
We’ve made great strides in better understanding the overall concept of corporate culture and what it entails. Company leaders now understand that culture is a critical driver of business performance, not just a measure of employee happiness. The impact of an over-the-top holiday party or fun happy hour will fade, but employees who are aligned with a clearly defined set of unique company values will truly thrive.
Culture is the backbone of every organization and when it is well articulated and executed, employee engagement soars. That’s why being able to clearly define — and then manage — your company culture is crucial to creating a healthy environment for employees to remain engaged, inspiring performance, organically attracting the best talent and driving high profitability.
