Culture Happens: How to Ensure It's What You Want - MetLife

Culture Happens: How to Ensure It’s What You Want Create a culture that benefits your employees, customers and small business

Brighter ideas in small business benefits

When you think about great company culture, you may think of giants such as Google, Starbucks or Southwest Airlines. These industry heavyweights are regularly included on lists of best places to work, lauded for their happy workers and healthy work environments. But many small business owners are also succeeding at making the workplace enjoyable, building cultures that will help them grow well into the future. In fact, culture and employee engagement have become increasingly relevant to businesses of all sizes as their leaders recognize the direct impact on company performance. Companies with highly engaged employees have an easier time finding new hires, better customer service, less turnover and are more profitable in the long run, according to a recent study published by Deloitte University Press.1 The same study revealed that 87 percent of organizations cited culture as one of their main challenges, and 50 percent called the topic “very important.”2 “When you have a great culture, people want to come to work,” says Ann Rhoades, founder of People Ink, an organizational culture consulting company and author of Built on Values: Creating an Enviable Culture that Outperforms the Competition. Prior to founding her company, Rhoades served as the chief people officer at Southwest Airlines, Promus Hotel Company and JetBlue. Continued ›

She defines culture as a set of expected behaviors. It can encompass how a company treats its employees and how employees treat customers. Rhoades notes that those big companies that regularly appear on these lists started as small businesses—and their engaged employee base is no accident. Instead, their culture is intentionally designed, something envisioned by the business founders and then regularly maintained.

Start with values and behaviors Small business owners looking to build—or revamp—their culture should begin by determining what’s important to their organization. Is it creating relationships? Putting customers first? Having fun? Talk to your employees about what they value and see if it matches your own thoughts, then attach behaviors to the values you’d like to embed in your company. “The best cultures are by design, where the founders and leaders understand the behaviors they want to see in an organization,” Rhoades says. For example, if your company values fun, define what that means, whether it’s being lighthearted with customers or using work time for celebrations and company parties. If integrity is a core value, then let your employees know the related behaviors such as rapidly addressing customer complaints or being transparent about fees and services.

Talk to your employees about what they value and see if it matches your own thoughts.

Rick Backus, CEO of San Diego-based CPC Strategy, says that defining the company’s values and related behaviors helps set expectations for employees and ultimately allows small business owners to delegate their decision making. “You’re essentially giving your team a playbook,” he says. “They understand the belief system and they know what they’re working toward,” he says. CPC Strategy, a retail search agency, employs 35 and is set to hire another 10 before the year’s end. Backus adds that small business owners often feel like their company and their employees are family, and he wants to create a culture that reflects that. For many small businesses, giving staff a comfortable work environment, paid time off and other benefits lets their employees know they care and reinforces the company’s values.

Putting Values into Action Once you’ve determined your company’s core values, aim to hire and retain employees who mirror them. For Jessica Mah, founder of San Francisco-based inDinero, which provides accounting, payroll and tax software to small businesses, defining what was important actually made the hiring process easier. For example, tracking and meeting performance metrics is a big part of the culture at her startup, which employs nearly 100 people. “So we look for people who are really numbers driven,” she says. That means they also recognize people who may not be a good fit, such as someone who is less goal oriented.

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Finding those perfect culture matches is so important that David Lipes, co-CEO of Montreal-based Budge Studios, which develops game apps for families and kids, heavily involves his employees in hiring decisions. Budge Studios has a staff of 75. “That way we end up with great people who want to work together,” he says. “We’re a smaller group and we work in an open area—it doesn’t take much to spoil that.”

Aim to hire and retain employees who mirror your company’s core values.

Rhoades, with People Ink, suggests that small business owners look for ways to hold employees accountable to their corporate values. That could mean including values in performance reviews or setting up rewards programs for employees who walk the talk. Rhoades recently consulted for a small company that revamped its values, and then began using them as a basis for tracking employee performance, and now goes so far as to list their values in RFPs submitted to clients. “Not only have they been getting more customers and delivering a better product, but the handful of employees who don’t mirror those values are self-ejecting,” she says.

Maintaining a Healthy Culture Creating a healthy culture is quite an achievement, but maintaining it is another. “We spend a lot of time talking about our values, who we are and how do we want to represent ourselves,” says Jeff Lind, founding partner of KnockTwice, a PR agency with a staff of 50 in Manhattan, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. That constant reminder is crucial. Companies with great cultures keep their values front and center through a variety of ways, from writing them on the walls and forming culture committees to calling out employees who embody them and making sure their values are reflected in their compensation and benefits packages.

The earlier you address culture, the better.

For example, Lipes notes that at Budge Studios having fun and working together are really important. To reinforce these values, the company has instituted regular Thirsty Thursdays. They celebrate a department or team’s recent product release with a happy hour and cake. It may seem small, but the gatherings are a piece of what makes the organization. “It’s part of what attracts people here,” Lipes says. “Our culture helps us compete for talent against some of the biggest names in the business.” If you want to incorporate your values into your benefits package, make sure that what you’re offering makes sense for your employee base. For example, new parents may appreciate life insurance and flexible work schedules, while younger staff might look for office amenities or stock options. Small businesses might also consider supplementing their health insurance offerings with other benefits including dental, vision and disability insurance. Whether it’s what you intended, every business has a culture. “The earlier you address culture, the better,” Rhoades says. But, she adds, it’s never too late to start. Identifying your corporate values, defining the behaviors you want and then rewarding those who reflect them creates a more engaged workforce that enjoys coming to work. Your staff stands to benefit and so does your business.

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1 Culture and Engagement, Deloitte University Press, February 2015 http://dupress.com/articles/employee-engagement-culture-human-capital-trends-2015/ 2 Ibid.

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