Are your employees feeling the LOVE? Building Company Culture

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May 07, 2022
Are your employees feeling the LOVE? Building Company Culture

Building a Good Company Culture

Company culture is the promise you make to your employees about what it’s really like to work for you. What sort of environment can people expect to work in? What are your core values? What are your norms? Company Culture is a system of shared beliefs and behaviors that determine how an organization’s members interact and make decisions. It’s the way people feel about the work they do, the values they believe in, where they see the company going, and what they’re doing to get it there.


The company’s leadership sets the culture. Each member of an organization ends up influencing it. This is reflected in things as small as what you wear to work and as large as how people treat each other.


Overall company culture is also influenced by other more tangible factors, such as operations, office layouts, and customer support. It is the sum of all of your formal and informal systems as well as behaviors and values. It is the one true identifying quality of your business. Systems and structure can be replicated. Marketing, tactics, strategies, products, and customer service approaches can be duplicated. Company culture is the thing that sets your company apart. It’s the soul of the business. 


While a culture has strong roots, it also evolves organically over time. Its resiliency should be based on firm core principles or company values that will help the culture remain true to what’s most important even as it changes. A truly great company culture is one that inherently promotes curiosity, respect, teamwork, and employee health.

A strong company culture is set by the leaders within the organization. Leaders should model the values they want to see in staff members. Leadership sets the tone. When leaders are standard-bearers, it makes the culture much more apparent. Here are a few steps leaders can take:


  • Ask for feedback

You can’t improve what you can’t measure – and nobody has greater insight into your culture than your employees. Use tools like Google Survey or Culture amp to gather feedback from your employees.

  • Provide recognition

40% of workers  say they’d put more energy into their work if they were recognized more often. So, make sure that you’re remembering to recognize people for their contributions. Encourage employees to express their gratitude for each other.

  • Lead by Example

When leaders fail to uphold the culture, things fall apart. Research shows that bad managers are one of the main reasons that employees quit. That means leaders need to act in alignment with the company’s cultural values.

The Importance of Company Culture

One benefit of a good company culture is Increased employee retention: Prospective employees are attracted to organizations that have a reputation for being a good place to work. Top talent is attracted to this type of organization, too, and your current employees also have a higher likelihood of staying. One symptom of a poor company culture is that your company is losing valuable talent. If you are losing  employees that are providing the greatest value , the first step is to conduct an audit of your current company culture.


Culture matters for both attracting talent and keeping your current employees around. 47% of active job seekers cite company culture as their driving reason for looking for work, and toxic workplace cultures have reportedly driven 20% of U.S. employees out of their jobs in the past five years. 46% of job seekers  cite company culture as very important when choosing to apply to a company.


91% of managers in the U.S. say a candidate’s alignment with the company culture is equal to or more important than skills and experience. Not only do employees expect respect and guidance from their supervisors, but managers look for cultural alignment in their direct reports. However, following the cultural-fit recruitment model will do more to improve your organization and strengthen employees' experiences.


Company culture isn’t just about team bonding and the annual holiday party – it can have a measurable and lasting impact on the success of your entire company.

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