Company Culture

We talk about “company culture” a lot, but what does it mean, and how does it affect how a business runs?

Company culture determines how you get things done in the workplace. It is the official and formal systems you develop and the informal behaviors and values of the company and its employees combined. The sum of these things creates an environment for your employees to work and communicate and the experience your customers have.

Your company’s culture is not what you decide it is. It’s the way employees feel about the work they do. It is their own core values and how THEY perceive the company. Most importantly, it is what the employees are doing to get it there. Since company culture is the shared set of values, goals, attitudes, and practices of the team, and the business as a whole, with each new addition (or loss), your company culture can improve and be fortified…or not.

As much as a company’s culture is dependent on each team member, a leadership team can influence results from top to bottom by creating and fostering a particular work environment. Since the environment in which employees spend their work time will largely determine the quality of an employee’s professional life, they’ll be more likely to work hard and remain with the company long term. Conversely, if the company’s culture does not reflect a team member's personal feelings, they’re much more likely to quit. Or even worse, stay with the company and underperform, altering the company's performance. This is one part of business culture that is often overlooked. 

If we know that culture is important and can drive performance, how can intentionality come into play, and do organizational values help shape culture? And should they? In short, the answer is yes. As a leader, it is your job to set the goal for company culture and then foster it. That means you can reinforce culture by establishing common practices which reinforce company culture (hiring, onboarding, rewards/recognition, performance management, PTO/attendance). You can communicate with employees about their definition of the company culture and their ideas to improve it. Most importantly, you can identify employees who do not emulate your culture and address that in the best way.

A successful company culture is bought into by everyone on the team. That includes the brand-new receptionist to the senior team and CEO. It must embody your core values—or at least be aligned and on the way there. It is the job of the company’s leadership team to ensure that every employee understands the expectations, is able to articulate them, and performs them accordingly.