Retaining Company Culture in a Rapidly Growing Business

Company culture is one of the most important aspects for people looking for a new job. It’s what attracts people to join a company, and it’s what makes them stay. For small start-ups, company culture comes naturally. It’s shaped by a shared mission to grow and succeed, and by the people spending days and nights together in a small office around a single table to make it happen. When businesses and teams are growing, company culture often struggles to keep up. It becomes secondary to the journey you are on, and people find themselves reminiscing “the good old days”. So, how do you keep the culture alive when the business is growing? How do you shape it, scale it, and include new people in it? I've got a few ideas I thought I'd put down here - Have a look and let me know your thoughts!

Here are a few ways you can retain your company culture as a fast-growing business

1.      Hire in the right way

Make sure you hire the right people for the company

People are the backbone of a good company. And it’s important to keep this in mind when deciding

who the next hires are going to be. They should be people that believe in your company and its mission.

Three principles that can help you decide whether a candidate is the right fit during an interview could be:

Be creative.

Every candidate will be prepared for the standard questions. Find ways to really understand how a person thinks and how that can be used in your company.

Be challenging.

Question them on scenarios that aren’t directly related to the role. This way you put them in situations

where they are more likely to show their true selves.

Be inclusive.

Bring in other team members to interview the candidate. By getting input from people in different

departments, you’ll form a more rounded picture of the candidate.

Offer a great candidate experience during the hiring process

The candidate’s experience throughout the hiring process should be a reflection of your values and culture. If a new hire has been brought on but had a negative experience at even some of the touchpoints, they are likely to be disengaged from your company and its culture from the get-go. In fact, a survey by textkernel highlighted that 94% of candidates consider a positive candidate experience a priority in the hiring process.

Some top tips for ensuring a good candidate experience could be:

• Write engaging and detailed job descriptions
• Communicate throughout the hiring process
• Follow-up early and often
• Have a clearly defined onboarding process

2.      Reinforce your company values

Values define your company at its core. Businesses spend time creating a set of values for a reason. But as a company begins to grow and priorities shift, those values can become overlooked or even fall by the wayside.

A few ways to keep your values alive could be:

Live and lead by example

Your managing team is there to guide people and communicate with the business as a whole. They should represent the core values and display them in everything they do.

Teach values through training

Proper training communicates that values matter. Bring in workshops to drive home the company’s values to both new hires and existing employees. Explain the significance of the values, and how they inform everything you do.

Reinforce values in all communication

Every employee touchpoint should reflect the values your company lives by. This means everything from company-wide emails and all-hands meetings to internal newsletters and socials.

Let your values drive business decisions

Put your words into action by letting the values you communicate to existing employees and new hires translate into the way you operate as a business.

Recognise employees who display your values

By regularly recognising employees who live by your values every day, it sets the bar of expectation to team members new and old, encouraging them to try and shine similarly.

3.      Be Communicative and transparent

As a company grows, and especially with the rise in remote working, transparency and constant communication is how you make sure the company culture is preserved. It’s vital that you keep everyone in the loop to maintain employee engagement. People want to know what they are working towards, and you need to make sure this is translated across to new hires.

A few ways you can encourage open communication and transparency could be:

 Be honest

Don’t sugar-coat failures, share what you have learned and how you plan to move forward.

Share your results

Have stand-ups where your employees can hear about the work being done and what the larger company goals are.

Break down the silos

Start encouraging your employees to ask people from another team to lunch or a coffee.

There are obviously other ways you can retain your company culture by getting the people within the business involved such as, letting your employees actually help shape the culture, by focusing on peoples needs within the business and really getting to know your employees through things like company culture surveys.

When you start to scale your business, you won’t be able to keep things exactly the same as when you were just a couple of people sitting on one desk. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible to keep the essence of your values and culture alive. Define those values and instil them in everything you do, from all-hands meetings right down to how you socialise. Alongside this, create an environment that engages employees, encouraging them to get involved and voice their opinions so that they feel like part of the journey.

The trick lies not in keeping your claws tightly grasped on every aspect of the business, but in establishing some core foundations on how you operate and trust in those you have hired to help you translate this culture across all teams. This way you can retain the company culture and grow it alongside your company.

I’d be really keen to hear your ideas and what you think might be best to use in terms of strategy, structure or even the specific tools that could help firstly, develop a culture but then also retain it moving forward as you grow as a business.