Over the past couple of years I have been working in an organisation that had a pretty healthy culture, I hadn’t realised how important it was until I saw it in action, and did a like for like against previous places I had worked. The more I delved into this subject the more interested I became, the human and business benefits are obvious, just look at Spotify and how their change in culture made their team x% more productive. It’s no longer enough to have your People, Process & Technology lined up and expect your company to perform at its best, the vital 4th element and one that can give dramatic gains for sometimes a little investment is Culture.
As an experiment I want you to try and write down what you think your company's culture is today, and what you think it needs to be to achieve your long term vision for your company. My first question is could you do it? Did you know where to start? Was it easy? My next question would be to get a mid-level employee, and a junior employee to do the same thing, now compare what all of you have written…
Just as we train technical teams to have an intimate knowledge of a technical stack so they are experts in it and can use it to bring innovative technical solutions to all types of situations, we should create our own company culture stack. We should become experts in it, it should empower and fuel organic company growth, and a whole host of other benefits.
The most successful companies of modern times the googles, the spotifies, the netflixes to name only a few all have their own culture. Not only do they have their own culture, they work at it, work on improving it, they brag about it, they understand it’s intrinsic value to the journey they have been on so far, and what a journey! Companies who create a successful culture today will be tomorrow's big winners, they will attract the cream of the millennial talent, they will be more in tune with their customer base, in short they will lead their industries. Without being blase about People, Process & Technology have been problems that have been contemplated for a great deal longer, and their value understood for far longer than culture, so culture is the new secret weapon of the successful. The great news is that it’s not a one shape for one industry and those who get to it first win forever, every company will have a different culture, and those who are most in tune with theirs will be the real winners in their industry!
Check out figures from places like Jobvite & Workforce 2020, they report that;
- 21% of job seekers consider a company’s culture when deciding to accept a job offer.
- 18% of employees reported that culture is a benefit that would increase engagement and loyalty
Remember that exercise earlier - could you talk about your company’s culture to a potential employee you really wanted to bring on board? if not you just lost 21% of potential candidates… Imagine what your company would be like if you could radically increase engagement and loyalty with 18% of your team through improving culture. Imagine how quickly that would spread throughout the rest of your company.
If you have enjoyed reading this, maybe completed the exercises above, and now have a head full of questions you should really give us a call to chat about culture.
