Building A Winning Company Culture – Tips & Real-Life Examples
Progressive companies are always in search of ideas that help them create a positive work culture. Because a positive and winning company culture is the key to attract and retain talent, which is crucial for business growth.
And, no, it does not have to depend solely on lavish workspaces, backed by big budgets. Even small to medium businesses can create a winning culture by focusing on employee and candidate experience.
When you keep employees at the focal point of everything you do, you make space for thriving company cultures – ones that employees cherish and customers appreciate. But, like with anything rewarding, building a cohesive and winning culture requires time and effort.
Although company culture develops organically, you can steer it in the right direction by taking culture initiatives early on. From building fundamental values to working as a team, there are several ways to establish a winning company culture.
The bottom line is: to create engaged, motivated, and happier workplaces.
Let's help you achieve this goal with tips and real-life examples that inspire and catapult you into business success.
What is Company Culture?
Think of it as the shared attitude of a company's employees. It's the way people interact within the organisation and with the outside stakeholders. It's the goals that a company has and how they are aligned with those of its employees. It's the practices, the processes, and the philosophies that guide the company. Together, these aspects shape the personality of the company or the culture that it builds.
How Developing A Positive Company Culture Helps
For any organisation, building a positive company culture is a stepping stone to long-term success. Success metrics like profitability, productivity, and sustainability depend largely on an organisation's culture. They are achieved if your employees feel they belong to the organisation, rather than being a misfit.
Workers with this feeling of belongingness are more likely to enjoy their jobs, which leads to better productivity. And it also results in a low attrition rate, which decreases the costs associated with attracting, hiring, and training new talent.
With 42% of Gen Z, 41% of Millennials, 43% of Gen X and 45% of Baby Boomers considering inspirational colleagues & culture as a top factor when considering a new job, the importance of company culture can't be undermined – no matter which generation does your workforce belong to.
As your employees spend a considerable time of their daily lives in the professional environment, you owe a positive, winning culture to them – a culture that helps them perform better and grow collectively.
How To Create A Winning Company Culture?
Talking about creating a winning, engaging work culture is all good. But real results are driven by real work.
So, how to get started? Let's dive straight into the whats, the hows, and the wows (read: examples):
LIVE BY YOUR CORE VALUES
The What :
When you have a business, you must find out what it stands for and then infuse it into everything you do.
The How :
Determine what type of culture you want and then decide on the core values that fit that culture. Next, ensure you hire people who can exercise those core values – the ones who are in sync with them and can not work without them.
The Wow :
Zappos' core values are geared towards nurturing a positive culture.
To ensure that they "hire for culture", the company conducts a culture fit interview. Once selected, the employees even undergo a four-week training where they are acquainted with the core values. At the end of the training, those who are unhappy are given "The Offer" – a proposal to take a $2,000 bonus and quit the organisation.
But why? To work with those who are genuinely committed to the company's core values and are ready to live by them.
EMPOWER THROUGH COMMUNICATION
The What :
Communication is powerful. You can drive people with words and keep them inspired to achieve more, happily. Which is why, it's crucial to ensure that your organisation thrives on transparent and honest relationships with communication.
The How :
Communicate what is expected from your employees. Create a culture where ideas are welcomed, and people don't hesitate to represent their viewpoints.
The Wow:
Twitter is one company that encourages open, honest conversations, just like its platform. From enabling people to represent their diverse opinions out loud to initiate crazy conversations, Twitter's company culture gives enough freedom to help people write their success stories without any communication barriers.
WORK-FUN BALANCE
The What:
It might seem a little trite, but work without fun is not destined for long-term success. Keeping your employees engaged in fun activities fosters productivity and employee contentment, leading to energetic work culture.
The How :
Make sure work stress doesn't lead to burnout. Enrich your company with new, fun on-site activities and programmes that boost employee engagement.
The Wow :
With its happiness crew driven by the zeal to make work fun, Zoom indeed makes it into the list of fun and happy workplaces.
Wellness spaces, game rooms, events, outings, and more – the video communications company offers it all to ensure that nobody runs out of fun even when the work-mode is on.
EMBRACE CULTURAL DIVERSITY
The What :
A winning company culture rests on diverse and inclusive workforces. Only when you value diverse people and embrace their distinct qualities and opinions can you create a healthy work culture.
The How :
Recognise the importance of differences, eliminate discrimination, and think of people as a team. Begin by removing unconscious bias and take small steps towards building a sense of unity. That's how companies often achieve breakthroughs – by bringing all together.
The Wow :
Nike is an excellent example of diverse company culture. The brand believes in bringing people together with "sport" as the binding force. By taking the goal of embracing diversity and inclusion to a deeper level, the company focuses on overcoming differences. This is how it drives creativity and innovation. And this is how it has attained a competitive advantage that's worth emulating.
OFFER ABOVE-AVERAGE PERKS
The What :
Go beyond the ordinary when deciding on the perks and benefits to offer your people. Because a winning company culture requires above-average perks to win the right talent and retain it.
The How:
There's always some scope to level up the perks you offer to your employees without stretching your budget. If you can't afford to provide full-service concierge benefits, consider flexible work hours, family leaves, free desktop music, fresh fruits, kombucha on tap, and the like.
The Wow :
The luring benefits and perks listed above surely act as a source of inspiration, right? But who's behind that inspiration? It's the software giant, Adobe.
The company ensures that virtually no part of its employees' lives is devoid of excellent perks. From affordable health insurance options that give them one less thing to worry about to educational reimbursement that helps them hone their skills – Adobe offers all this and much more to establish a positive, growth-oriented company culture. And so can you.
MAINTAIN AND EVOLVE THE CULTURE
The What :
A winning company culture requires continuous efforts. It's not something you do once and forget about. You need to be consistent while leaving enough room for flexibility and growth. As long as the essence of your company's culture remains intact, you can tweak your policies to maintain and evolve it.
The How :
Be on a constant lookout for ways to improve your company culture. Evaluate the people, industry trends, and social changes to adapt your culture accordingly. It requires systematic analysis and strategic decision making to reinvent the culture as an organisation grows and expands.
The Wow :
Google is the gold standard of incredible company culture. With a mission as fantastic as "organizing the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", Google knows how to keep employees at the center of everything the company does.
As the company continues to grow by leaps and bounds, it doesn't stray from delivering what its employees seek. With years of refinement into practice, the company regularly invests money, time, and effort into maintaining and evolving its culture. And the results are for all of us to see.
Ready To Create Positive Culture Ambassadors For Your Company?
Learn from the tips mentioned above and build a company culture that differentiates your organisation from the rest. When you create a positive work culture, you make a happy, satisfied community of employees who become your culture brand ambassadors. And that's a win-win.
But creating such a culture can get a little intimidating, especially when you don't know where to start. If that's the case, we've got your back.
At Wiggli, we are always there to assist you with valuable insights and information that take you one step closer to winning company culture.
Also, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave your comments below on the companies that motivate you to do more for your employees and keep the conversation going.