Building a Strong Company Culture

• Define your Purpose, Language, Values, and Standards

Your journey into building a solid company value or culture begins with a clearly defined purpose. In this case, don’t assume you already know, and remember to write it down. Even if some of the information appears too soon, keep records of them.

It may be easy to survive in the early stages of growth without this essential point. But as the team grows and the business expands, there will be more need to put a structure in place. By then, it may be too late to start defining things.

Discover the business purpose by answering the question of why the business was created. Whom does it serve, and how? 

Answer these questions calmly and correctly, and make them as inspirational as possible. Apart from purpose, there are values and standards.

Your company must speak a singular ‘language,’ a written or unwritten code embodied by staff. Make the standard tangible, measurable, and cohesive with other core values. These values must also be adaptable as the company grows. 

• Build a Strong Foundation

Every building that will stand the test of time must have a solid foundation. The same goes for building a company with a solid organizational culture. The need for a solid foundation is non-negotiable. 

When a company starts, it is often found in the owner’s belief system, experience, and ideologies. Most of the initial values, ideas, concepts, and visions stem from your values and goals. However, choose the core values for your company. 

You can now begin to align each person who joins the team with these core values. However, you will need excellent leadership skills and principles to build a formidable team. 

For instance, if you have an excellent interpersonal relationship, let your business reflect the same. In addition, you must learn to communicate these values with your employees when building the team. 

• Lead by Example

Since many company cultures stem from the leader’s personality, it is only normal to lead by example. A leader must be conscious of the values the company has come to represent and advocate for the good ones in his own life.

Your employees’ adherence to the company culture partly depends on what your employees see you do rather than what they recite. In some cases, people don’t have to communicate with words before these values sink into everyone. 

At the same time, the leader need not be overly cautious but be transparent. The workers will learn more and imbibe the right culture in your transparency. For instance, if the boss is often rash, everyone will likely see the result of being that way soon. 

• Hire the right talent

In building a formidable team with the right culture, you cannot underplay the part of a solid, competent and skilled talent team. Putting a square peg in a round hole is not only going to spoil the work; the damage could be irredeemable to a company. 

Just as you infect your employees with the company culture, the employees can also infect the business. Therefore, you can find traces of the employees’ traits in interpreting the company culture or relating to one another. 

Therefore, the employer must find specific traits that align with the company’s values when hiring. Otherwise, a wrong hire can change things and create unintended chaos. It is essential to find skills whose personality aligns too. 

• Prioritize Job satisfaction

If there is a single factor that will keep employees from leaving the company, it is job satisfaction. Meanwhile, the longer an employee stays, the better they imbibe and express the company values. So, it is not advisable to recycle staff over a short period.

An employer must pursue that employees are happy and satisfied working for the company. These two factors regularly determine if the company will flourish tomorrow, especially if it has diverse categories of employees.

One way to know your stand is to do an anonymous internal survey to analyze the employee’s perspective and respond accordingly. A happy set of employees often put their best effort into making companies successful. 

• Efficient Onboarding

When you find the right talent with the potential to learn your company value and culture, the next thing is to integrate them. This process of integration into the company culture is known as onboarding. 

Onboarding new employees into the value system and organizational behavior takes a deliberate effort. It is not only the job of the employers but requires a cooperation of fellow employees. Everyone must help new employees become part of the social network.

New employees with or without experience must learn afresh what it means to function in the new organization. However, this process may take some time before we begin to see the expected results. And this process must be repeated for every new addition. 

• Reward and Recognition system

Another strategy for building a strong company culture is insituting a reward and recognition system. The primary purpose of this system is to encourage and motivate employees to keep giving their best. 

However, their efforts are measured in accordance to the company’s values and culture. For instance, if a company esteems teamwork, it is expected that it rewards the best team monthly or yearly. But such a reward cannot be based on individual perforamnce.

When rewarding such a value, employers must seek the group that exhibit cohesion and teamwork in line of productivity. In addition, whatever employee recognition and reward system a company employs, it must also align with the overall company culture.