7 Benefits Of Building A Strong Company Culture

The role company culture plays in a business’ success has evolved a great deal in recent years. Massive brands like Google and Apple have placed great emphasis on their corporate culture, and what it means to be part of their workforce. In the past, this wasn’t a huge focus for most businesses. Maybe this was because the world was a smaller place back then. You tended to work close to home, so only had so much choice. Whereas today, we live in a global society of virtual workers and free-moving individuals.

Or maybe it’s because today’s business owner wants their employees to feel like they have more than just a job. Whatever the reason, company culture plays a massive role in today’s office. Competition for the best talent is high, and it’s your company culture that can play a defining role in who you acquire.

What is Company Culture?

In the same way your personality defines who you are as a person, a company culture defines what a business stands for. From your values, mission and vision, to the environment you create for your workers, a company culture is what humanizes a brand.

It’s often the difference between creating a job that someone does each day, to a career that they feel a part of. Providing a meaningful culture that creates a memorable employee experience gives your workforce purpose, and the motivation to give their best at all times. By not focusing on this, you run the risk of falling behind your competitors who do.

Today’s workforce wants more than a paycheck. They want to feel happy, satisfied and challenged by what they do each day. They want to feel aligned with the business’ greater mission, and enjoy the environment they work in. They want to feel part of a true team, surrounded by like-minded individuals who care about their job, and the impact they have.

By not focusing on your corporate culture, you lose out on hiring these people. Meaning you may find it hard to hire (and keep) the best talent in your industry, falling further behind your competitors. So, although on the surface it may seem like a luxury you do not need, by digging deeper you may find your company culture is what truly sets you apart.

Here are 7 benefits of building a strong company culture:

1. Company Culture Creates Motivated People

People who turn up happy, challenged and motivated each day are often more productive. They’re efficient with their work, but more importantly, they’re invested in the job they do. They feel like they are part of something bigger, which empowers them to put their best foot forward at all times.

A corporate culture that creates this lays the foundations for your workforce to show up each day. It encourages transparency and collaboration, which in turn generates innovation and solutions to complex problems. By crafting a company culture that means something, you keep your employees motivated no matter what happens in your industry.

2. Company Culture Creates Community

For many generations, a job was just a job. People did it because they had to, and they stuck at the same job for as long as they could. This outlook no longer applies for many, as more people get more access to different skills and opportunities.

It’s easier to move on and try new things, which makes employee retention tough to achieve. Yet when you bring like-minded people together for a common cause, you build a community. This is what people want to feel part of, whether it’s at home or in the office. Community breeds trust and rapport, which gives your workers greater reason to stick around for the long-term.

3. Company Culture Creates Clear Messaging

Beyond your own workforce, a company culture can bring you closer to your customers, because building your culture forces you to think about what you stand for:

• Your vision for the future
• Your mission statement
• Your core values
• Who you can help the most
• How you can serve them best

You get crystal clear on who you are and what you do, which allows you to create crystal clear messaging for your audience. This makes it easier for you to find your ideal customer, but more importantly, you make it easier for them to find you.

4. Company Culture Guides Who To Hire

Having a clearly defined company culture helps guide who you should hire. Although it’s important to hire talented people that have the necessary skills to fulfil a specific role, it’s arguably just as vital to bring in people who fit the culture you’re building. 

A talented person who divides your team can have a serious negative impact on the culture you build. This in turn affects your business, so it’s important you rid these bad apples as soon as possible. Your company culture helps achieve this, because it attracts people who align with what you’re building, rather than only those who are good at what they do. When an employee recognizes that they don’t fit in with your company culture, they often end up  anyway, leaving you with the responsibility (and expense) of replacing them. 

5. Company Culture Creates Alignment Between Colleagues

Once inside your business, and as your teams and departments grow, a strong company culture helps keep everyone aligned and driven toward a common goal. In the beginning, as a business remains small, this isn’t always important. But as you grow and scale, an unorganized and unaligned team can have a massive impact on quality, service and customer retention.

Company culture aligns your team(s), so they remain on the same page. They turn up each day, fighting the same battle, which in turn creates unity and clarity.

6. Company Culture Creates Clarity

A strong culture creates clarity throughout your business, among all your stakeholders. A huge part of a company culture centres around your vision, core values and overall mission. The more clear you get on this, the more clear you get on everything.

As your culture evolves (which is what happens when you bring the right people together, and they stick around for the long term), your messaging evolves with it. Clarity gets clearer and clearer, and everyone benefits: your team, customers, suppliers, investors and upper management.

7. Company Culture Creates and Saves Money

Finally, as you know, one of the best ways to grow a business is to either make more money, or save money. The best solutions achieve both, which is what creating a strong company culture can bring.

Both customer and employee retention is vital in a company’s growth. Acquiring new customers is almost always more expensive than retaining them, and hiring new people for your team holds both visible and invisible costs.

By creating a strong company culture, you fill your business with people who stick around longer (both customers and employees). This makes you more money, and saves you a great deal of it. Over time, this fuels huge growth within your business, and allows you to scale to whole new levels. So although creating a company culture may seem like a luxury at first, hopefully you can see why it isn’t.

The Role of Company Culture: Now and in The Future

The business world is arguably more competitive today than it ever has been. From acquiring and retaining customers, to hiring the best talent (and keeping them), competition is tough.

Having a strong, clear company culture doesn’t guarantee success, but it does provide greater meaning for all your stakeholders. It forces you to focus on your vision, mission and core values. It pushes you to think about who you hire and whether they are a good fit for your business. You no longer only think about what role you need to fill, but rather who needs to fill it.

No matter what industry you’re in, people are always at the heart of it. They are the ones running the business, and they’re the customers and suppliers who keep it going. People are part of the entire process, and by creating a company culture that means something to them, you instantly stand out from your competitors who don’t have the time or care to do so.

Because of this, investing in your company culture may be one of the best investments you ever make. It can help you make more money by bringing in more customers, and save you money by retaining your staff. 

Where it was once a focus only for Silicon Valley giants like Google and Apple, it’s now important for businesses of all sizes and types. It lays the foundations for a world class team, so to learn more about this -- and how to hire for your culture -- read this separate article that accompanies this one.

Looking for a way to manage your workplace more efficiently? Check out what Eden’s Workplace Management Platform can do for your office.