Company Culture - Slacks or Sweats?

About a month ago I had to opportunity to travel to Chicago with my Neeley Leadership Program cohort. We did various business site visits between the two days we were in the city. Each company we visited had their own distinct culture especially between the different types of business, like Uptake which is a start-up and BlackRock which is an investment management company. You could tell just from being a guest, in the first few minutes of walking in what the culture was like. Grosvenor and BlackRock were both very professional and much more similar to a corporate culture that I have been used to, you could tell this just based off of what the employees were wearing. Grosvenor was the first company we visited and I was not surprised at all by the culture, it was similar to the banks and accounting firms that I have networked with the past couple of years so I wasn’t shocked. However, right after Grosvenor we went to Uptake and Groupon which was a drastic change in culture from Grosvenor. When we walked into Uptake you could tell they had a unique culture and one that was very laid back. They had bamboo and fake trees inside, open classroom setups for meetings and more. Additionally, the dress was very casual, my group walked in in our suits and they were in ripped jeans and hoodies and when we went to Groupon one of the employees that spoke to us was wearing sweatpants.

The change between Grosvenor and Uptake and Groupon was the biggest shock of the trip because I think they were the two most different, most of the other companies kind of fell in between those two polar opposite cultures. For me personally, I have done so much recruiting with banks and accounting firms that I am more used to the professional corporate culture that that felt more correct to me. However, we could clearly see differences in employees between the companies and they definitely seemed that they chose the type of culture that was best for them.

The whole trip and the combination of all of the company cultures it made me realize even more how much company culture will likely impact how much I like my job. I was able to then reflect on my time recruiting with the Big 4 Accoutning Firms; each one does the same work and they are all the same size so you would think that they would be similar but that was not the case. I feel even greater about my decision to intern with KPMG because as I reflected I realized that it truly was the company culture there that pushed me over the edge to be certain that that was the company I would want to work for. I am so glad I got to do all the business visits we did in Chicago because if I were to ever change companies in the future I know to pay attention to the culture and I know what type of culture I would not vibe with.