What Is Company Culture And Why Is It Important?
Company culture is often defined as attitudes and behaviours that a company and its team members display on a daily basis. Ultimately, it’s something that is evident in everyday interactions from weekly meetings to how team members communicate offline.
A healthy culture in the workplace is important as it acts as the personality of the business and it encompasses a variety of vital company elements, which include the following:
- work environment
- company mission
- leadership styles
- values and ethics
- goals and expectations
When building a healthy company culture, it’s to start by establishing your company values and building your culture around them.
Establish Your Values
Company values (much like personal values) matter to a variety of people such as customers, team members, and others who interact with a business. You should take your time when establishing your values as this important step should not be rushed.
So how do you establish your company values? Well, we wish there was an easy answer to this, but it really depends on what you want your company to be and where you want it to go.
At Crisp, we took our time establishing our values because we knew they would be integral to our growth and success. Each of our values is important to us and our team embodies them as we conduct our business every single day.
Our values include:
Constant Learning
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- Done is better than perfect. Iteration and learning are part of the process. Innovation requires a learner’s mindset.
People-focused
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- Our people and partners are our strongest assets. We humanize marketing and create solutions with a person in mind.
Can-do
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- We can do it together with passion, purpose, and thoughtfulness. We will get it done.
Respect
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- Diversity is our strength and key to creating the best solutions for our customers.
Thoughtful Candour
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- We speak plainly, directly, and truthfully. We listen and respectfully challenge ideas for the best results.
A helpful tip when thinking about your values, is to think of important decisions your business needs to make in order to achieve your goals. Your values should act as a reflection point that you can refer to when you are having a difficult time making an important decision.
Every company will have different values and that is okay, but what matters most here is that your business genuinely cares about these values and everyone on the team is capable of displaying them.
Time To Curate A Plan That Aligns With Your Values
Now that you have spent some time thinking about your values (and possibly already established them), it is time to curate a culture plan.
Your plan will include traditions and practices on how you can display your values in the workplace.
For us, we did a lot of critical thinking on what traditions and practices we could implement that would really display our values and allow us to grow and achieve our goals. We created traditions and practices for all of our values and here are some we wanted to share with you:
Constant Learning
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- Lunch & Learns: We have a lunch & learn each month. They can be on any topic a team member wants to share (marketing related or not). We have had some amazing ones in the past from personal finance to skincare routines.
- Crisp University: As a team, we are constant learners. We take part in formal training so everyone on their team can further develop their careers and grow personally.
People-focused
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- Team Happy Hour: We believe in balance and the need to have fun at work. We plan team happy hours and create fun activities for the team to connect and build relationships.
- Appreciation Gifts: We value our team members and appreciate all their hard work. Every team member gets a yearly budget to send appreciation gifts to other team members and clients for their amazing work.
Can-do
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- Finish Fridays: Every month, we block off the first Friday of the month and work on tasks that we have delayed and/or de-prioritized so they get done.
- No Meeting Fridays: We stopped scheduling meetings on Fridays so our team can utilize that time to get immersed in projects and critical thinking.
Respect
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- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workshops: Diversity is important to us and we take part in formal workshops to educate our team.
- Slack Statuses: We respect our team members when they are online or offline. We use Slack statuses to show when we are unavailable. No one wants to receive a Slack huddle while they’re at the dentist.
Thoughtful Candour
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- Daily Huddle: We have a daily huddle where everyone on the team goes over what they have planned for the day and if they have any blockers. This is crucial as it allows us to reach out to our team members when we need help or offer support when we are able.
- Weekly Stumbles: During our weekly team meeting, we mention the mistakes we made the past week. We believe in transparency. This is important as we are all human and mistakes are okay. We share and learn from all our mistakes.
While these are just a few of our traditions and practices, they have been integral to our success and growth this past year.
How To Measure Your Success
After you have established your traditions and practices and implemented them, you need to allow some time to measure their success. You may not notice any changes overnight, but the hard work you put into your culture plan will be evident.
There are some ways to track your success but a key indicator is the attitude and behaviour of your team. Does your team live and breathe the company values? Are team members participating in the traditions and practices? Are team members making decisions with company values in mind? If so, then you are on the right track.
There are other avenues to measuring success such as implementing formal and casual employee check-ins. These check-ins are a great way to not only see how a team member is doing and if they need support, but it also builds trust and rapport among team members.
With all this in mind, company culture is extremely important. In fact, it can make or break a company. A good company culture will attract top talent, while a bad
one will push away good people and other businesses. Therefore, creating a culture plan is integral for the growth and success of a scaling company.
Want to learn more? Book an “Ask us Anything” call with one of our marketing experts to see if hiring a Fractional CMO is the solution you need.
