Don’t hire Hotmail users & other tips to save your company culture

There are a lot of buzzwords in the business world, but no word gets more abused than “culture”.

Everybody is talking about it, but barely anyone knows what it actually means. To most entrepreneurs, their company’s culture is a set of fluffy feelgood words or values. To most people actually working in the business, these words mean absolutely nothing. It’s very easy to create a set of words to describe your organisation. Remember, at Enron, their chosen words to describe their values and culture included “Honesty” and “Integrity”.

Similarly, many startups get sucked into thinking that a few beanbags and an Xbox are what they need to keep everyone productive and loving what they do.

You don’t need these buzzwords or toys in order to have a great company culture. The true culture of any business emanates from who they hire, fire and promote. Actions speak louder than words, so it’s very important to ensure that you are getting these things right.

Hire good people, get rid of dead wood, and reward the superstars. If you can get these things right on a micro level, it will ensure that you are scaling your organisational culture on a macro level.

It’s relatively easy for an early stage startup or small business to have a good company culture. But scaling that to hundreds or even thousands of employees is notoriously difficult. Here’s how we did it.

1. DON'T HIRE SOMEONE WITH A HOTMAIL ACCOUNT

Because every job we advertise gets hundreds of applicants, it’s important for us to be able to filter the applicants effectively in a way that ensures someone is the right fit for our organisation. We filter for email addresses—if you have your own domain or a @gmail.com account then you make it through to the next stage. If you have a @hotmail.com account then you’re out. Someone with a gmail.com account or their own domain is likely more tech savvy. We also look at what browser you were using when you submitted your application—using Internet Explorer 8.0 won’t increase your chances of getting a job.

If someone makes it through to the interview stage, we tell them that there will never be any formal training at Kogan.com. Our organisation has a culture of "Google everything and question everything". Google (not a training course) is our main tool for answering and solving any problem. In today's world, by the time you have put together a formal course for something, it’s old information. Their reaction to being told about this policy tells us a lot about whether we should hire them or not.

2. FIRING IS IMPORTANT

Firing the dead wood is just as important as hiring great people. The wrong people can be a huge burden on your business. They hold up projects, set the wrong example, and like a disease can spread very quickly if not addressed and rectified.

It’s important to ensure that you have processes that can promptly identify any staff that are underperforming and try work with them to improve their performance.

If, after significant effort, you don’t see an improvement in their performance and attitude, it’s time for them to go.

It is also important to talk to your team members to find out exactly what sort of roles they enjoy the most. Ultimately, people will be best at what they enjoy. We have resolved several HR issues at Kogan.com and improved our performance simply by moving staff between departments to roles that better suit their passion.

3. ENCOURAGE INTRAPRENEURSHIP

Promoting and rewarding your top performers is probably the most important part of your culture. It is leading by example. It is showing your entire organisation what the real values are and advertises who the pillars that uphold them are.

At Kogan.com, we run a meritocracy. This means that everyone is rewarded purely on the value they add to the business. We don’t care how old you are, what university degree you have, how long you have been at the company, or any irrelevant factors like that. All we care about is the work that you are currently doing and the value that it’s adding.

Our staff can submit a “business case” for a payrise as often as they want. This business case contains their achievements, the value it’s added, areas where they think they excel and areas where they need improvement. We also encourage them to attach other current active job ads that they think they have the skills to perform.

This causes individuals in our team to be intrapreneurs, knowing they will be rewarded based purely on how much they contribute. We don’t believe in “once a year” payrises on a certain date – this is not a good incentive structure because it means that staff have no incentive to perform at the top of their game immediately after a payrise or promotion.

The meritocracy at Kogan.com has had tremendous results. We have an incredible team that achieves incredible things. A few years ago, we had a 19 year old who had received six payrises in six months and made it into the senior management team after starting with us as a customer service agent.

4. WORK ETHIC AND OUT OF OFFICE TEMPLATES

You can tell a lot about a person's work ethic from how they word their Out Of Office email template when they go on leave. You can also tell if it's a person that's driven by and gets inner fulfillment from achieving an end goal or simply by fulfilling their minimum contractual obligations.

Out Of Office template for someone who always does the bare minimum:

I am out of the office until 20th January and will not be checking my emails during this time. Please email [email protected].

Out Of Office template for a high achiever:

I am out of the office until 20th January and will have limited access to emails so please expect a slightly delayed response. You can also contact [email protected] while I'm away or if any matter is urgent, you can call my cell on 0412 345 678.

So keep an eye on what Out Of Office template your team mates choose to use. It's a good guide.

Bottom Line

Culture is crucial to every organisation. It’s what defines who you are and what mission you set out to achieve as a team. It defines the values that you as a team possess and your rules for engagement in achieving your goals. It brings the team closer together.

But don’t let all the buzzwords associated with your "culture" make you lose sight of what it actually means. The real "culture" of any organisation is who you hire, fire and promote.