Is your culture captivating….. enough?
The term “company culture” has become a popular point of discussion over the last few years. As organisations realise that they need more than just a competitive compensation strategy to attract Salesforce superstars and digital marketing masters, “culture” is the new secret sauce for recruitment.
Used correctly, your company culture can define your business, improve your employer brand, and help you to retain your key staff members. The question is when 64% of today’s employees feel as though they don’t have a healthy workplace culture, how can you make a difference?
What is Company Culture?
A company culture is primarily a reflection of your organisation’s purpose. It’s how people feel when they come to work each day, and the words they use to describe you to their friends. When you provide a work environment that your team enjoys, you have a good culture.
For tech companies, a great culture might be an environment that always offers access to the latest tools, supports innovation and offers opportunities for professional growth.
The benefits of company culture include a more attractive organisation, happier and diverse employees, and even better productivity in the workplace.
So, how do you build a strong culture?
How to Build a Powerful Culture with Coaching Solutions
According to Laurie Sudbrink of Unlimited Coaching Solutions, great culture is all about supporting your people. “Enlist them, empower them, and encourage them. When they “own” it, the culture will thrive.”
To create an experience that facilitates “ownership” from your staff, follow these steps:
1. Start with a Vision
A great culture has a guiding focus. For instance, your digital marketing company’s mission statement might be to engage customers using cutting-edge technology. Essentially, your vision outlines what you want to accomplish as a business (besides making money).
With a mission in mind, it’s much easier to bring everyone together on the same page and orient your decisions to suit the greater good of the company. For instance, non-profit organisations are particularly good at choosing vision statements. The Alzheimer’s Association’s idea of a “World without Alzheimer’s” is both compelling and straightforward.
2. Identify Your Values
While your vision articulates the end goal for your tech company, your values represent the compass you’ll use to reach your targets. Values support your company culture by showing employees the habits they need to develop to produce exceptional work.
For instance, if the values for your marketing company are to “uphold professional standards” and “be accountable,” then your digital hires will know that they need to double-check their work and follow industry guidelines to the letter.
An excellent way to make sure that your values resonate with your team is to include staff in discussions about the development of those values. Launch a company-wide meeting where everyone has their say.
3. Adjust Your Practices
As powerful as your vision and values can be, they don’t mean much unless you’re using them in everything you do. For instance, if you tell the world that your Salesforce consultants are on the cutting-edge of technology, how are you going to follow through on that. Can you provide them with additional training, or give them all-access passes to upcoming conferences?
Values need to be reinforced in every aspect of your company, all the way from your review criteria to your recruitment policies.
4. Hire the Right People
While you can train your staff to adopt new practices and values, it’s much easier to create a team that already shares your vision. Working with a specialist recruitment agency to sort through candidates who already embrace your values is a great way to strengthen the culture you want to build.
Remember, studies indicate that applicants who considered their employer to be an excellent cultural fit are happy to accept a 7% lower salary. What’s more, departments with good alignment experience 30% reduced turnover.
5. Regularly Revisit and Adjust
A culture is a dynamic and ever-growing thing. That’s why businesses need to commit to continually reviewing and adjusting their strategy for success. Just as an organisation can evolve and change with time, a culture develops consistently too.
Put a day on your calendar at the end of every quarter where you can look back at your culture and evaluate its performance. Look at your turnover numbers, how happy your staff is, and how easy it is to attract the right candidates with your recruitment team.
The Importance of Great Leadership
Perhaps the most important thing to remember when you’re creating a compelling culture is that leadership is critical. Your team will look to the leaders in your organisation for examples of how they should behave. As such, cultural changes need to be implemented from the top down.
Your C-Suite executives and managers must reflect the values and standards of your firm entirely. This doesn’t mean simply memorising the mission statement but implementing your best practices into everything they do. For instance, if you claim to be an innovator, are your leaders signing up to speak at industry events? If you’re forward-thinking, can you always trust your managers to test and implement new technologies?
Business-wide buy-in starts from the top.
Thanks
Lee
About Resource On Demand
Resource On Demand is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Company, now also focusing on providing coaching solutions to help build high performing teams.
We assist innovative and disruptive organisations to grow their technology teams. Supporting companies to fill Cloud roles that span across Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation, Human Capital Management and the growing Salesforce.com suite of skills.
The team at Resource On Demand have access to an extensive database of key talent, registering over 8000 Cloud professionals each year.
To find out how we can support you call us on +44 20 8123 7769