As the founder of a company, landing on a Best Places to Work list is pretty high up there when it comes to "we’ve made it" moments. Once the celebrations are over and the excitement dies down, the hard part of maintaining that award-winning culture comes around. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of becoming complacent with the company culture that won you that award in the first place. Obviously, things are working. Why fix something that isn’t broken? But I think that is the wrong mentality.
As a company evolves and grows, so does its culture. What worked for you with 50 employees in one office may not work once you reach 150 employees scattered across the country. With these changes, there will undoubtedly be challenges. These should not be ignored, but rather embraced.
We often like to say that culture is more than the visible perks you see when walking around an office. It is about those intangible things that you sometimes don’t realize are there until you sit down and take a long, hard look at what is working and what isn’t. So what does it take to maintain an award-winning culture? I’ve tried to boil it down to three main concepts: purpose, investment and trust.
Creating A Purpose-Driven Culture
You can’t have an award-winning culture without purpose. Most successful companies have mission and/or vision statements that help guide business decisions and define their objectives and the approach to reach those objectives. A company’s culture needs to have its own. Purpose is about why we do what we do. I believe it is extremely important to a company culture to have a set of internal values that provide a guide to employees on what they are striving toward and why.
People want to be connected to a purpose. A PWC survey reported that 70% percent of people globally say they want to work for an organization with a "powerful social conscience." An important thing to remember is while this purpose does not need to be tied to the trade of the business, it does directly impact the company’s bottom line. Reid Hoffman, Executive Chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn, wrote, “Companies that understand the increasing emphasis of purpose in today’s professional landscape improve their ability to attract such employees and also their ability to retain them for longer periods of time.”
Investing In Your People: Time, Resources And Leadership, Personally And Professionally
Once you have that purpose defined, it is equally as important to put resources, time and money into developing it. The return on this investment will continue to prove itself, both as it relates to your overall business health and when it comes to developing your organization’s future leaders.
This investment can come in a variety of forms. You can provide your employees with continuing education, invest in mental and emotional health programs, plan social outings, offer flex hours or participate in charitable endeavors. Each of your employees will value different perks and benefits, and you need to be aware of that when considering where you should be investing your time and resources. Research has claimed that 75% of the causes of employee turnover are preventable, so understanding your employees and what they value cannot be overlooked as it pertains to creating a strong company culture.
You also need to invest in your relationship with your employees as well. This means dedicating time to getting to know them on both a personal and emotional level. As it was put by one organizational development expert, “When employees and leaders share insights and interesting ideas, a deepening of personal happiness and an escalation of morale within a more agile as well as sustainable organization can occur.”
The main point is that no matter how you choose to go about it, you need to keep your employees engaged, as it has been found that disengaged workers cause massive losses in productivity.
Building Relationships And Establishing Trust
Trust is established in many ways. If employees feel supported mentally and emotionally, there is a deeper relationship that develops, which in turn leads to trust. This is a mutual relationship that should benefit both parties, and it develops from a place of authenticity and a willingness to accept mistakes and failures.
The same can also be said about transparency. While every organization has a different comfort level with what information is shared, transparency goes a long way to developing trust between an organization and its employees. Providing them with information on where the company is headed and what factors were weighed when making certain decisions helps employees feel invested in the organization’s success, ultimately leading to increased productivity. On the flip side, when there is a lack of transparency and trust is questioned, turnover increases. In one survey, 34% of workers who reported a recent change in their organization said they didn't trust their employer.
Being open to feedback is another critical piece to developing trust in an organization. While company culture evolves from the top, it has to stem from a place of understanding and listening to your employees. Provide a platform for employees to give unfiltered, anonymous feedback to individuals at all levels (including those in the C-suite) on a regular basis. Receiving this regular feedback from your team also helps you keep your finger on the pulse of your organization and could potentially help you avoid surprises down the road. It is always better to get ahead of a problem than scratch your head wondering why something went south after it happened.
As a leader, if you have the trust of your people, they are more likely to follow you. This is especially true as you are working to consciously evolve the culture of your organization. Change doesn’t fare well against resistance. But if there is trust in place, your employees will be much more likely to get on board with the change you are trying to implement.
