Promoting Your Company Culture

Nobody wants to work somewhere they hate. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s becoming more relevant to workers and management alike. People are voluntarily leaving jobs more than they have in years. These departures have a lot to do with companies’ responses to the pandemic, which showed a stark contrast between the workplaces that care about their employees and those that do not. If you want to retain the great employees you have and attract amazing new ones, your company culture is a big part of the equation.

The Struggle of Virtual Culture-Building is Real

Company culture matters because it motivates. For most employees, the company they work for becomes part of their identity. Their feelings about this identity manifest in several ways that directly impact work output.

There is no doubt that the move to remote working has made it more challenging to promote a sense of community. It can be tricky to instill culture into the hearts and minds of new employees you’ve never met in person, and just as hard to remind long-term employees what the organization stands for. This dilemma will likely continue as more organizations move to a hybrid model. With team members working from multiple locations, leaders must strive harder to create and nurture the culture.

So how do you promote a strong company culture in any working arrangement? The foundation always starts with having shared values.

The Steps to Shared Values

The importance of corporate values and the culture they create cannot be overstated. Today’s most successful companies know that to attract and retain both employees and clients, they must define and instill values that make their organizations great.

Defining and documenting values carefully, sharing them company-wide and ensuring that this documentation is accessible for all employees to refer to are essential steps for maintaining a strong culture—and with hybrid work, it will be particularly critical.

Here are some creative ways to bring corporate values to life that work for everyone, no matter where they are working from.

• Create value challenges. Encourage team members to share a story of when they, or someone else on their team, demonstrated one of your values. Share these stories weekly or monthly during team meetings. You could also take a cue from our client, Merieux NutriSciences, and publish them in your company newsletter.

• Make them visual. This could be something simple, like a culture deck that easily walks employees through your core values and why they are important. The most visible example of a successful culture deck was a slideshow created by Netflix, titled “Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility.” The keys here are that it is a breeze to read and understand, is written in a conversational language with examples, and is shareable.

• Publish them online. By adding your company values to your website, you’re able to communicate to the world what you stand for. Potential customers and employees should feel something about your company through how these aspects are portrayed on your website. If you do this well, you have the power to create an impactful connection with them in their first interaction with you. That’s BatesMeron’s goal in sharing our company manifesto on its own page on our site.

• Print them out. Depending on the size of your company, it may be more challenging to physically distribute a branded piece that promotes your values, but we’ve learned that employees love having something tangible to hang on to. When we helped Lundbeck turn their seven core beliefs into a pocket flip book, retention of the brand’s beliefs among employees skyrocketed to the high 90s out of 100.

Looking for ways to promote your company culture? Look no further—BatesMeron is here to help. Reach out to learn more!