It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a successful organization is made of people who want to come to work every day, can measure their successes and are committed to the organization. We propose this comes from a workplace environment. Simply put, culture helps people enjoy their work. People who enjoy their work help the company grow.
At Nexecute, we live and breathe by this principle. In fact, we wrote an entire blog series about culture from the organization’s perspective, but let’s look at it from an outsider’s perspective – that of a future employee.
Do people outside your organization really care about your culture?
The Quality Manager on the leadership team of one of our clients is now a part of the organization because of their culture. In fact, she jokes that she “stalked” our client, her future employer. When she read the core values on their web site she was immediately curious and imagined what it might be like to work for an organization which actually lived out the stated core values. That would be her test: are they just words or do they drive the culture? After more research she applied for the position and was eventually hired. She would tell you today the main reason she applied for this job is because of the core values. Parenthetically, when she sees misalignment of core values she is the first to call it out. She was the first leader to have core value discussions with her team and now hires and fires around core values. She is a core values champion.
Given social media it doesn’t take much to intrigue a future employee, whether they are employed at a rival company or just curious. Maybe they are simply doing their job, going from task to task, yet a bit bored and unengaged with their work. They stumble across a Facebook post of your team celebrating someone running a marathon on the weekend by getting smoothies for the office come Monday morning. The future employee is struck by the level of caring of your organization in supporting a fellow co-worker’s achievement of a personal endeavor. Think about it. Someone running a marathon on the weekend isn’t a workplace achievement – it’s personal. But by supporting them and congratulating them, it makes them feel as if you care about them as a person and not just as a salary to pay. Your culture is attractive. People get inquisitive.
It is a simple Facebook post, but it showcases your culture to future employees. It’s not fake, or forced, but organic. That team member did run a marathon. Are you proud of them? Absolutely!
Now, look at it from a reputation point-of-view.
When team members like each other and enjoy working together, they become a stronger team at every level.
On the other hand, we could share dozens of horror stories from leaders who had teams that were not strong. They had certain employees who did not like each and they did not enjoy working together. When the leaders finally make the decision to part ways with them – and by the way, no leader ever said they should have waited longer to terminate – the culture changed, and the team dynamics were strengthened.
Think about it logically. Teams who work well together, thrive! Word gets around. This all comes from having a great work culture and taking the steps you need to achieve it. Rather than looking for gimmicks to attract employees, the culture is cultivated by doing the rights things to build a strong culture. Future employees notice.
Interested in an in-depth overview of culture that you can share with your colleagues?
Simply provide us a little bit of your information and you can receive a guide that teaches you all you need to know about organizational culture.
Stay in tune for the next blog in the Attracting the Perfect Team series where we discuss the value of providing great team benefits that should be so much more than vision and dental.
Just now tuning into our Attracting the Perfect Team Series?
