Corporate culture is the “soul” of a business – True or False?

David Cummings, co-founder of Pardot, has stated that: “Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely under the control of the manager.” If you think of a business as a person, corporate culture is its personality, qualities, and character. The work atmosphere that your employees experience every day is the clearest manifestation of corporate culture.

What is corporate culture?

Corporate culture is understood as the “style” or management model within an organization. Corporate culture will determine how difficult it is to communicate between different employee levels, as well as how personnel in the company handle work with customers and partners.

Employees will work passionately when the corporate culture is aligned

Corporate culture includes many factors such as the work environment, mission, values, corporate ethics, expectations, and common goals.

Why do managers need to build and maintain corporate culture?

Employees will enjoy their work more when their needs and values are met by the company.

It would be terrible if you had to work with people who are always late every day, especially when you highly value punctuality. It would be wonderful if your colleagues, like you, knew how to share the workload and support each other.

A company’s culture is formed from its individuals. When that culture is strong enough, it will automatically weed out individuals who don’t fit in.

Being late for appointments and missing deadlines is a common “culture” among staff at many companies

If managers do not screen personnel and fail to proactively build a corporate culture, the company will spontaneously develop “bad cultures” that spread from person to person until they become a “chronic disease.” Gossiping, bullying, harassment, blaming, job dissatisfaction… these are all “bad cultures” that are a headache for many managers today.

How to build a corporate culture?

To lay the first bricks for building your company’s cultural house, managers need to… dig the foundation first!

Define your business

Read the three questions below carefully:

• Why was your business created?
• What values does your business strive for?
• What goals does your business want to achieve?

These questions are the foundation for building your corporate culture.

Goals and values are the core elements for building corporate culture

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that, from the position of a business manager: “If you can get two things right – one is having a clear direction for what you want to do, and the second is gathering great people to realize that direction – then you can do very well.”

Thus, as long as you clearly define your company’s reason for existence, as well as its values and goals, half the work of building the culture is already done.

Identify your company’s existing culture – Keep the good, discard the bad

Culture comes from individuals, according to Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.

“True leadership stems from individuality, expressed authentically and sometimes imperfectly,” Sheryl affirmed. She also advises that leaders should aim for that authenticity, instead of always demanding perfection from their staff and the company.

A good culture is built on the pursuit of individual values

Be bold in letting go of individuals who do not align with the values, philosophy, or goals your company pursues. Don’t think you’re doing something wrong! Trying to retain employees who are not a good fit for the company is detrimental to both parties. The employee will never feel satisfied or fulfilled at work, and the business will never be able to build a sustainable culture. The disadvantages outweigh the benefits.

Invest in Employer Branding

Imagine each business as an individual in society. “Birds of a feather flock together.” The way you present yourself will attract similar people to be your friends.

Similarly, your company’s employer brand in the market—how it’s perceived in the words of past candidates, current or former employees, partners, and customers—will attract a corresponding talent pool.

Optimize regulations, recruitment, and onboarding processes

First impressions are the most important. The process from recruitment to onboarding is the first measure employees use to evaluate a business when entering a new environment.

Employees will evaluate a business through its recruitment and onboarding process

Treat your employees the way you want to be treated. If you want to work with straightforward, honest people, don’t create complicated, roundabout processes. If you want to stop the blame game and the “everybody’s business is nobody’s business” mentality, don’t have unclear regulations and work processes where it’s uncertain who is responsible for each step.

Find every way to preserve, strengthen, and promote the company’s core values, then evaluate and adjust until they are suitable. This is the method for building the most sustainable corporate culture.

Read more: 6 standard steps in the recruitment process

1Office – An effective toolkit for building corporate culture

• Build a professional work environment, enhancing interaction and connection between departments within the company through an internal network system, eliminating the need to wait for in-person meetings.
• Give managers the opportunity to connect with, listen to, understand, and contribute their opinions. This, in turn, helps motivate employees, making them love their jobs more and stay with the company long-term.
• Establish a high-level, tightly-knit management system with superior features such as human resource management, schedule management, and document management.
• All information is kept absolutely secure, preventing opportunities for competitors to exploit.

Learn more about other unique features of 1Office here: 1Office – An easy and effective method for building corporate culture.