#20 What is Company Culture today?

This week’s newsletter is about culture. Why? Because everything boils down to that: Can you keep and get employees, can employees perform at their best, can you get the customers you want, can you manage to grow, and on and on it goes. 

Culture has changed so dramatically within the past two years that I want to dedicate this week’s newsletter to it (& as brought as the topic is, give some guidance on “what is the culture of the future” and how we can maintain and thrive in it within a dispersed environment). Starting off with the basics – what is this thing that gets drizzled down from the very top?

What – the definition of Company Culture

When we think of a culture of a company then words will fall such as “ping-pong tables”, “free lunch”, “open-plan office”, “barista”, etc. 

But why is that? Because those offers evoke certain behaviors and that is culture!

Culture are the attitudes and behaviors of a company and its employees – Balance Careers

In the end, it boils down to:

Interactions + Values + Decisions = Culture

A culture answers such questions as:

• how do you feel about the work we do?
• what do we believe in?
• what do we work towards? (Eg.: Famously known also as the statements of  Airbnb - “Create a world that inspires human connection” or Google - “Build for everyone”
• how do we get there?

These answers guide the communication employees have, more importantly how they communicate – as back in the day your culture might have been to do some brainstorming whilst playing a round of ping pong. Besides that culture also very much can be experienced by looking at how people treat each other – are there recognitions? If so, what kind and how regularly? are we celebrating wins? how so? do we help each other? in what format?

Every company does each of these things, but as in most things, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. – Great Place to work

Why – the need for Company Culture

For Executives is there a need for company culture?

Yes, because:

• 41% of CEOs believe workplace culture makes the greatest impact on attracting and retaining top talent (PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
• 70% of executives said company culture will be critical to realizing their organizational mission (Deloitte)

For Employees, is there a need for company culture?

• 66% of job seekers consider a company’s culture and values the most important factor when considering career opportunities (Fast Company).
• 20x more like to say their workplace exhibits traits linked to innovation

For stakeholders, is there a need for company culture?

• Companies that actively manage their culture boast 40% higher employee retention (Deloitte). 
• Organizations with strong cultures boast 72% higher employee engagement rates than those with weak cultures

How – pre-pandemic looks of Company Culture

Company culture back in the day was very physical, where are which people.

The office

1. an address you can share with friends
2. a building you can walk in
3. a space that invokes a specific feeling (eg.: for physical products, there might have been a showroom, maybe there was also a meditation room, a nap room, or even a gym)
4. the famous benefits of free fruit bowls, a barista, or a ping pong table

The people

1. You can see the people on a daily basis that are representing the culture: their style, the diversity preferences, everything from nerdiness over mainstream top trends to polo shirt people – there are observable trends
2. You can observe people’s behaviors (one that is specifically important within a culture, of how do we interact with each other?), for example via a water cooler:

How – today’s Company Culture

Now that the office is not the sole place to feel and experience the culture or maybe it does not exist anymore at all, the question arises: How can workplace culture be maintained, instead of physical objects and spaces? 

Expectations around culture have been altered — employees expect to be engaged, challenged, and feel a sense of belonging at work. – Anonymous

We are going from where are we to how are we? 

A crucial statement as I believe because the pandemic was a time for everyone to iterate, reflect and most specifically evaluate what brings value. This had the effect that a feeling has surfaced, which now is a requirement for many within the workplace: each individual wants to feel valued!

It is not anymore about how much free food can I get at the workplace or how cool is the address of my office, the focus has changed from those external satisfactions to the internal ones.

& this dear readers is the solution to the company cultures of today and tomorrow: Internal satisfaction. We are entering a time where it is not a bonus anymore to be people-first, it is a must. Hence, we need to cater to the feelings and wishes of everything the employee has to offer, work and life aspects combined. When that is achieved, employees will be engaged, perform, promote and attract the talent that suits your culture.

What is it exactly?

Great Place to Work confirms this, according to their studies tomorrow's workplace culture will be based on these three components:

1) A fairer Workplace by increasing transparency and inclusion:

• Fairness can be achieved by firstly making sure that all employees are in the loop – we have to work on the flow of information. This is where communication plays a huge role. In today’s dispersed workplaces over-communication is key. How has someone told me once: “If you communicate something so much that you feel like you are blue in the face, then you are communicating just right”
• When thinking back to the aspect of value, this also means opening up streams of communication that not only enable employees to listen and learn but also to share and contribute. There need to be environments to openly share feedback, ideas, teachings, experiences, etc.

2) Increased Focus on Developing All Employees

• Part of the global Top 3 concerns of CEOs in a 2022 report by the Conference Board is developing tomorrow’s leaders. Hence, the future culture is one that leans on personal and professional development. It may not be as heavily reliant on shadowing, but more on skillsharing that may turn into mentoring as well as self-serve lessons. Note here that this is exactly the two-way street that the culture of tomorrow defines: An employee helps the company and the team to move ahead as knowledge grows but on the other hand the employee feels valued and seen as a whole person beyond work output by being offered opportunities to grow. 

The truly great workplaces will be those that temper their investment with integrated support for the whole employee –

3) A Deeper Sense of Purpose For All Employees

• It comes to the additional aspect besides communication which is feeling a connection because people want to feel connected to what they are contributing. Am I supported? Do I feel seen? Can I contribute? Does this vision align with my values? Do I feel connected to those around me? DO I BELONG?

Summing it up, the future company culture can be made tangible in a way that the connection nodes can be traced but else very intangible to what we’ve been used to for decades: It is based on overcommunicating with each other, being very intentional about how we can help the employee flourish and enabling connections that go beyond the connection to the actual work.

Extra: How to support the right formation of the future company culture?

1. Most importantly, view this year as a trial and testing phase. There are so many different ways through which people can experience, communciate and connect today within the workplace – give it time and let the data tell you that you gather by talking with your people. With that, everything else is about evaluating and reiterating.
2. What we need in any case today is a lot of TRUST – where on a scale from one to ten do your colleagues feel in terms of being trusted to deliver the work no matter how, when, or where they work? Find out and improve it.
3. Reevaluate current rituals and habits (Gartner) and question yourself: Why do we have them in place? Do they still make sense the way they are for the future way of working?
4. Evaluate the various ways of communicating at the moment: How do we collaborate? How do we resolve conflict? Are we deliberate about the time that we meet virtually or in person?
5. Reevaluate the connections that are being formed: Do we have intentional shared, in-person experiences? Do we foster connection within a whole person approach such as people sharing the outside interests they have at work?
6. Evaluate how people grow within those dispersed environments: Do we connect people to learn from each other? Do people have opportunities to share and contribute? Do we challenge people to widen their horizons to gain new perspectives?

Once you collected and evaluated all those opinions, find a direction that people want to go in, let it run, and reevaluate everything again in a few months – Is everything still the same? Great, if not, time for an iteration. This process takes time but it will be an exciting journey.

That's it from my side this week. If you felt this article was insightful, don't hesitate to reshare it.

See you next week!

Franzi