Modern businesses understand that company culture is one factor responsible for the success of a business.
Your company culture might not look like every other business, but you should have goals for your business and how you choose to treat your employees.
A good business environment has employees who feel like they matter to each other and the company, and every person you work with should feel like they’re an integral part of a team.
Here are five reasons why company culture matters.
1. Defines Your Identity
Every company has its own unique identity that can be defined through company culture.
When describing your company’s culture, you typically describe the people, calling them team-oriented, happy, productive, etc.
First, consider what you think your culture is like. Next, consider why each attribute of your company culture is important. For example, you may believe that work-life balance is important because it promotes better productivity and happier employees overall.
Consider why these attributes matter to your company and the people within your company. Your company culture also has an impact on how the outside world, including your customers, views you.
For example, people prefer to work with happy customers, so having a better work-life balance can help improve your customers’ relationships with employees and the company as a whole.
Ultimately, company culture defines your company for your internal employees and external companies. It impacts how your employees interact with one another and your customers.
Simply put, your culture will have an impact on every aspect of your business because it represents how you run a business.
Your identity is part of your overall company image, which affects how people view your company.
2. Reflects Core Values
Company culture directly reflects your company’s core beliefs and values.
How you manage a business, interact with each other, and treat people is all part of the employee and customer experience that should represent who you are and you believe people should be treated.
Your culture takes your core values and puts them into action, allowing them to be seen by your employees and the public.
If your values don’t match your culture, it means they’re simply not true, which will show in the way you treat your employees and your customers.
For example, suppose your core values are to offer flexibility to employees so that they may have a healthy work-life balance, but you still force employees to work from 9-5 every day.
In that case, it will come out that your company’s values are a lie just to gain more customers.
A strong culture will put your core values first and make them appear in everyday business operations.
3. Creates Employee Advocates
Having a healthy company culture can turn your employees into your greatest advocates or worst critics.
For example, if you treat your people well, pay them fair wages, and offer great benefits, and they feel like their work matters, they will be happy to spread positive word of mouth about your business.
If you want your employees to tell everyone how great you are, you have to be great. One way to provide a great company culture is to reward good work.
Of course, you don’t have to have a pizza party every time an employee succeeds, but you should recognize hard work.
Celebrating the successes of individual employees and teams can give employees a sense of accomplishment that makes them proud to come to work all day.
On the other hand, if you have a toxic culture, employees won’t feel too bad about telling the world about it.
If you treat employees unfairly, they may even take to job boards, review sites, and social media to tell the world about your unfair treatment, which can become a big reputation problem that you could have avoided.
4. Helps you Attract and Retain Top Talent
Having a positive company culture can help you recruit top talent and retain your best employees.
Employees who feel like they are part of a community instead of just a pair of hands on a project are more likely to stay at your company.
Many employees would rather be happy at their jobs than earn more money, but of course, it is important to pay employees fairly.
Company culture extends far beyond the work lives of your current employees and includes respecting future employees to ensure your positive culture impacts the recruitment process as well.
You want prospective candidates to take note of how well your employees are treated and how happy they are at work.
Additionally, company culture can help improve the onboarding process. Many new employees notice company culture on the first day and will determine whether or not to dedicate themselves to a job based on how the other employees are treated.
Company culture can guide new employees and teach them how to act at work.
5. Impacts Performance
Happy employees are more productive and take fewer sick days. Company culture has a direct impact on the well-being of your employees.
For example, a toxic work environment typically leads to stress, leading to sickness, and more time off.
On the other hand, happy employees can manage their stress and come to work to be more productive throughout the day.
If your company overlooks physical and mental health frequently, you could be hurting your company more than you know.
Employee well-being starts with the company culture and how the people are treated at work.
While stress is inevitable in any job, happy employees can deal with it and move on better than employees who are asked to continue working in a toxic environment.
Remember, your company depends on the people within it.
If you notice employees are burnt out, stressed, or completely unhappy, you need to look at your company culture and begin making adjustments that can help your employees thrive.
If you’re unsure how to build a company culture, now is the time to learn and hire an HR professional who can help you instill important core values into your workforce.
Matt Casadona has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. Matt is passionate about marketing and business strategy and enjoys San Diego life, traveling, and music.
