In a previous article, I spoke about why Company Culture is essential. Now I want to talk about building a company culture. Here, we’re going to talk about how we build a culture from the ground up, but even if you have one already, you can follow along to make it even clearer and more inspiring.
How do you build a company culture?
I have more articles coming up so make sure you sign up for my newsletter to get all the tips, but culture starts with intention and specific focused steps.
First: the Mission Statement
What exactly is culture and how can a company define it? Culture starts with your purpose. Why is your company in business? If you don’t have a mission statement for your company that clearly states your bigger impact on the world, get to it. I have a free resource for building that here in a Mission Statement Toolkit.
The second thing you need is core values.
These Core values are the basic elements of how we go about doing our work and how we interact with each other. Core values help your employees and clients know exactly what is most important for your company. There are tons of words to use: respectful, diligent, customer-focused, innovative, and on and on. While of course, we want to be all the good things, getting really clear on your core values, is essential. It’s the feeling of your brand. How do you want clients to most feel when they walk through your doors or interact with your team? What do you want employees to focus on most when representing your brand to others? These are important questions and define the feel of your company and we know that feeling is perhaps the biggest trigger to purchase.
If you need to define your company’s core values, try this Core Values Toolkit I’ve put together.
Feedback will make the culture buy-in Easier
I highly suggest getting feedback from your employees. If they get to offer ideas and feedback, they are also more likely to buy-in to your values. Culture is a company-wide directive, so ensure you include as many people as possible when sourcing ideas. You can always eliminate or merge some later.
Get the done-for-you employee culture survey here.
Quarterly Company Culture Focus
Lastly, have quarterly culture meetings – just like any of your other projects that need to be maintained, culture needs to be a focus in your business if you really care how the world sees your business or practice. Have quarterly goals (easy-peasy with the goal sheet below), check-in with employees and have an action plan – just like you would any other company project. Your team works best when they like the culture they work in and for.
Culture is everyone’s responsibility and it starts at the top.
Company culture is everyone’s responsibility and that usually starts with leadership as the model. Leaders have to drive the importance of the mission, values, and culture if they want employees to feel it and act accordingly. Have a plan to incorporate more company culture-focused events and actions to ensure that it is always on people’s minds. Having fun events, competitions, rewarding people for showing values and just appreciating them can be ways that a leader adds value. I have an article coming up on that so sign up for my newsletters here.
Get Your Company Culture 1-page Plan here.
This page will help you plan out what values you want to focus on and ways you are going to go about it this quarter. You can review and compare these each quarter to see how you are doing.