By Tian DuBelko
Culture is one of those buzz words that are thrown around in board meetings and in blog posts about entrepreneurship and business. But what is culture? And why does it matter?
Here is one definition of culture in a business context:
“Culture guides discretionary behavior and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us how to respond to an unprecedented service request. It tells us whether to risk telling our bosses about our new ideas, and whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time.”
– Harvard Business Review, Fraces Frei and Anne Morriss
As a founder, it’s in the best interest of your company to maintain a great workplace culture. While each workplace will have a different dynamic, culture should be formed with your employees in mind. If you look to provide a productive working environment, your employees will be more focused and efficient.
Your workplace should be somewhere that your employees look forward to being in every day. Having enthusiastic employees looking forward to their jobs will lead to a happier workplace, which in turn leads to less stress and most importantly, more productive work. It’s understandable that the daily workload can be challenging sometimes, especially for tech startups trying to get off the ground, but the company culture doesn’t have to add on to the stress. On the other hand, companies like Google has such a positive environment that employees want to be at work.
That’s why culture matters. Good culture means happier employees, which leads to more productivity for your business. Building and maintaining your company’s culture is a worthwhile investment for long-term returns.
Your company’s culture can also be a fantastic recruiting tool. Going back to the example of Google, part of the reason Google has had such global commercial success is the fact that they attract the most talented coders and programmers, in large part due to the attractive workplace culture that the company has cultivated over the years. People want to work in Google’s large, collaborative offices and enjoy the perks of being a Google employee.
If you want to attract and hire talented people, you want to build a culture that is unique to your company. When people walk through your front door, they should know immediately that this is a different company with its own unique culture.
A company culture that pays attention to employee happiness generally leads to happier employees, lower turnover, as well as better company performance. Spend a little time maintaining a positive culture, and you’ll have loyal employees along with higher profits.
And finally, focusing on culture allows you to eventually form some guiding principles for your company. Stick to those principles, and you might get known for them. You can base hiring and firing decisions based on these guiding principles, and your employees will all know to work toward that specific company mission. In some respect, your culture and guiding principles serve as the backbone of your company.
Having a strongly identified company culture will also make it easier for you to integrate new team members. If all of your employees are on the same page, then you don’t have to spend as much time assimilating any new hires. Here are some steps you can take towards having a great company culture:
Because most startup teams start small, it’s incredibly important that you hire the right person for your team. Hiring is already a time-intensive process, but especially so if you have to repeat the hiring process several times. Getting the right person for your company the first time will save time and money in the long run.
One bad hire can bring down your whole team and even your whole company. For example, if you hire someone who reflects poorly on the company outside of work, then anyone that they meet will view the company unfavorably. A bad attitude is contagious, so snip out the source before it spreads.
Ideally, you’ll hire employees who are passionate about the mission and values of your company. Whether that’s making the world more open and connected like Facebook, or organizing all the world’s information like Google, you want employees who are on board with what your company is trying to accomplish.
When your employee isn’t fully committed to your company’s core values, then it just becomes another job. On the other hand, when your employees fully buy into your company’s core values, they remain engaged and stay energized on helping the company succeed.
No one makes the right decision 100% of the time. If management made all the decisions, they alienate the rest of the employees and potentially miss out on some great ideas.
As companies grow bigger, the employees usually become less involved in key decisions. Their impact on the business gets drowned out and it becomes ingrained into the culture. Employees go to work, follow directions, and become another silent cog in the wheel. But the best companies know that good ideas can come from anywhere.
For example, the Google News tool was created by Krishna Bharat, a Google research scientist in response to wanting to see news from multiple sources all compiled in one place. Bharat wasn’t told to create this tool. He simply did it on his own based on an existing need.
Having employees with some creative freedom can lead to some unexpected breakthroughs. And keeping an open ear will help foster an environment where these breakthroughs can happen.
There’s a reason almost all CEOs refer to their employees as a team. The first is that it creates a close bond and a sense of camaraderie. The second is that in the context of a team, either the whole the team succeeds, or nobody does. Instead of a bunch of individuals working on their own projects, in a team, you collaborate to create something greater.
Teams are the efficient way to solve problems and create solutions. And when people are working together, no one will feel left out of the process. Creating a startup and leading a company is not a one man task. At some point of your journey, you’ll need a dependable team of passionate employees to help you overcome challenges.
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