Company culture and how can we maintain it?

8 min readJan 16, 2020

Company culture

Company culture is the personality of the company. It defines the environment in which employees work. It includes a variety of elements, including work environment, company mission, value, ethics, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, habits, goals and expectations. It is a vibrant business tool, aimed at minimizing rules and mistakes and maximizing the satisfaction level of both our employees and customers. This is a tool that will synergize the interests of all three players in the business: the customer, the company, and its employees.

Great company culture sets the foundations for real, tangible business growth. It’s based on honest, productive conversations and helps companies to identify issues and collectively form resolutions. It’s how a company cultivates business growth by offering each employee a voice, while encouraging healthy day-to-day attitudes, behaviors and work ethics.

The practical effects of company culture usually range from being harmless common-sense guidelines (e.g. don’t be a dick to people), while in more extreme cases, they can be used as a measuring stick against you, and grounds for harsh judgement if you are not “being driven” enough, e.g. putting in 65 hours work week on a regular basis.

Importance of company culture

Employees are more likely to enjoy their time in the workplace when they fit in with the company culture. They tend to enjoy work when their needs and values are consistent with those in the workplace and tend to develop better relationships with coworkers and are even more productive.

It defines your company’s internal and external identity

Culture is company’s identity and image, which means it determines how your people and customers perceive you. It puts your company’s soul on display and tells the world who you are as a brand. Your customers want to feel a connection with your brand, and it’s your culture that will forge this bond.

Organizational culture is about living your company’s core values

The ways in which you conduct business, manage workflow, interact as a team, and treat your customers all add up to an experience that should represent who you are as an organization and how you believe a company should run.

Company culture can transform employees into advocates (or critics)

Your people want more than a steady paycheck and good benefits; they want to feel like what they do matters. And when your people feel like they matter, they’re more likely to become culture advocates — that is, people who not only contribute to your organization’s culture, but also promote it and live it internally and externally. It’s true that good talent knows other good talent. And when your employees are happy with their work, they are more likely to share with others. They’ll spread the word about their positive experience with your company, and you’ll soon gain a strong reputation.

A strong organizational culture helps you keep your best people

It should come as no surprise that employees who feel like they’re part of a community, rather than a cog in a wheel, are more likely to stay at your company. In fact, that’s what most job applicants are looking for in a company. Hiring an employee is an investment, and you want to make sure you invest in the right people. By ensuring each individual you hire fits well with the company culture, you make it more likely they will stay with your company long term and contribute more to the success of the organization.

A well-functioning culture assists with onboarding

Onboarding new employees is a hard process to do well. You might think of onboarding as something you just have to check off your list, but it’s easy to forget that things which are second nature to you are totally new and unknown to someone who has just started. Organizational culture also has the potential to act as an aligning force at your company.

Culture transforms your company into a team

A successful organizational culture brings together the people at your company and keeps them aligned. When your culture is clear, different perspectives can gather behind it with common purpose. The culture at your organization sets expectations for how people behave and work together, and how well they function as a team.

Culture impacts performance and employee wellbeing

Employees shouldn’t dread coming to work. They should enjoy coming to the office and value the work that they do. Companies with a strong culture have employees who like the challenges of their job, get along well with their co-workers and enjoy the atmosphere of the workplace. Culture gives employees a driving goal and purpose for what they do. It connects the leadership team with the rest of the employees and binds them with a set of shared beliefs. They feel like they are contributing to something larger than themselves.

How can we maintain company culture?

These are some ideas that help to maintain our company culture. Keeping company culture intact during a growth spurt is doable, but we must make the conscious effort.

Rigorous Hiring Practices

Clearly, hiring the right kind of personalities and backgrounds has a huge effect on how a company operates culturally. One of the best ways to preserve company culture is to hire carefully. We must verify that new hires aren’t just qualified — make sure they are a good fit. We can use a team approach when interviewing. Making sure they fit in with the people they will be working with on a daily basis. It’s valuable to see how they act with potential colleagues versus how they interact with their boss.

Talking About Company Values (Setting Clear Expectations)

During the hiring process, we must be sure that company culture and values are front and center, this helps candidates make their decision, too. We must be sure that company onboarding practices set clear expectations so that those joining the team understand culture from the beginning. Asking interview questions based on company values is a good approach.

Developing And Maintaining Traditions

Establishing company traditions is great for unifying all employees and can be a fun and social way to increase engagement.

How about an annual retreat and/or holiday celebration? Or a monthly social outing, like mini golf or bowling? Why not implement a “Fun Friday”? We suggest a glass of wine on Friday afternoons, but this can be anything that makes sense for our company and culture :)

Ensuring workspace reflects culture

What do we want the space to say about our company and employees? Does our office design align with our desired culture? What do we want our surroundings to say about our company and the people who work here? Is it hipster and cool? Is it bright and airy? Funky and modern? Classy and professional? Warm and welcoming? Perhaps you’re striving for funky and fun. We must ensure that the workspace is ergonomic.

Recognizing Employee Achievements And Contributions

This should always be a part of company culture, and it helps foster loyalty and satisfaction among employees. Recognizing birthdays, anniversaries and significant milestones in employee’s lives makes them feel that company cares. We should make a practice of doing small things on a more regular basis than big rewards. People, in general, need recognition and to feel appreciated more than once a year at the Christmas party.

Keeping Lines Of Communication Open

One sure way to lose that tight-knit feel and culture is to stop getting feedback from employees. Maintaining an open-door policy helps business stay grounded. Working along with employees and putting ourselves in other shoes, we can learn valuable things, and people will see that we still care.

Emphasizing on employee wellness (Showing every employee that company cares)

No organization can expect to foster a positive culture without healthy employees. Employees need to feel their best — physically, mentally and emotionally — in order to contribute to a positive culture. In many ways, employee wellness is a foundation for a positive corporate culture. We should ensure that employees have the resources, tools and on-site healthcare opportunities they need to live their healthiest life — inside and outside of the office.

Being transparent and communicative

In a small company, it’s relatively easy to have good interoffice communication. Once we start to grow in size and number of employees, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain that communication and ensure that everyone is always in the loop. This is even further complicated when we start to add offices in different locations. So how do we make sure our company culture is preserved? Communicate, communicate, communicate.

We can use communication tools–such as Slack or Skype–to keep everyone in the know. It’s an easy way to give updates, encourage open lines of communication and provides a fun and social element for employees to stay in touch.

Transparency is also key when promoting a good company culture. We can’t expect to have a positive and consistent company culture when employees are not informed about all relevant information regarding the company. People want to know what they are working towards. And in fact, “purpose-oriented employees experience 64% higher levels of fulfillment in their work compared to non purpose-oriented employees.”

Providing Feedback Channels

Getting employee feedback is an important element in any business, and it is crucial to maintain this when scaling up. It becomes easy to lose touch when a company is getting bigger and bigger. Feedback channels are an excellent way to stay grounded and make sure we are always aware of any and all issues–as well as all positive things!

Some of the ways to have open lines of communication and easily allow for employee feedback can include holding weekly video meetings, sending out “Know Your Company” surveys and having regular social outings and activities.

Training the Leaders

As company grows our departments will grow and expand and we need to bring new talent to lead the way. The ability to identify leaders who will not only embrace our culture but inspire others to do the same is essential to preserve our culture. All leaders at our company should go through the same leadership and communications programs to learn a common set of leadership values that align with those of the company itself. Showing appreciation and being straightforward about expectations of our leaders will help create a long-lasting relationship. People come and go but making an investment to train our leaders will help shape our team for the long run.

Being Open to Change

As company gets bigger, our culture will inevitably evolve with the changing personnel, processes and demands that business faces. Keeping this in mind, and being ready to adapt our culture with the active input of our staff is important as time goes by. This will also mean updating the core values guidelines that define our culture. People at the company will feel more valued if they have the opportunity to shape the culture, not just fit in to a pre-existing one.