27 Jan The Importance of a Strong Company Culture

By: Lauren Coats (Dir. of Employee Engagement)

The buzzwords of ‘company culture’ have inflected many eye rolls as trends make a cliché of overused words. Despite any frustration of seeing too many LinkedIn webinars or infographics on Instagram about this, culture really is the foundation of any company’s ability to be successful or not. Culture will inevitably make-or-break your organization. 

A common goal from a business owner or company leader is, “I want my team to create the results we need”. However, despite it being 2023, many companies fail to recognize that results come directly from the culture set in the organization. How is this so? 

Culture Comes From Desired Behaviors 

Culture is described as the ways in which employees do and don’t perform; their behavior towards tasks and each other. Desired behaviors are the behaviors that business owners or leaders want shown in the organization. Ideal employees demonstrate the desired behaviors. Whether it be efficient, speedy, accurate, polite, or a combination of behaviors – whatever is intentionally decided as the behavior standards will become the type of company culture. 

Desired Behaviors Drive Results 

When all of the organization is working together with the decided upon behavior standards for results, the results follow. If a customer service company values politeness the most then they will need to hire employees who demonstrate the ability to perform with politeness as their strength. Training must include what politeness looks like instead of leaving it up for the individual to interpret. Continued internal communication must be met with politeness as well. These will all cultivate a culture of the desired behavior, politeness, where the employee is now empowered to demonstrate that most important value to their customers. Another example is if efficiency is the most important value of a company that works on an assembly line, then hiring, training, and communication needs to all involve efficiency in order for the employee to be empowered to demonstrate that desired behavior. 

Culture Directly Impacts Results 

When employees are demonstrating desired behaviors from business owners or leaders, they are driving results for the success of policies, processes, strategies, and methods within the company. 

Therefore, because culture comes from desired behaviors, and desired behaviors drive results – culture will determine results!

Conclusion

In order to accomplish the common goal of “I want my team to create the results we need”, business owners and leaders need to create intentional culture by attracting, training, communicate to and retain employees who reflect the desired culture. 

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for more tips, tricks, and results from our Employee Engagement Survey that demonstrate our desired behaviors in action!