How to Tell Your Company Culture is on the Right Track:

• Your people clearly understand their role within the group
• They are emotionally connected to the work- ie. they care about the goals of the organization and they align with their personal goals
• They are being properly recognized and compensated for their work
• They are experiencing a good work/life balance
• You and your coworkers treat one another with respect (shoot, sometimes you may even downright like each other!)

It’s no secret that when you have a high-performing, positive culture your people are more motivated and their work reflects this. This level of satisfaction also typically means that they are less likely to jump around from job to job, and will grow to be active brand advocates.

When you are retaining great talent who talk up your company, it makes the hiring process easier when you do need to bring on new talent. You can attract a higher standard of candidates that match the high standards of your culture. According to Glassdoor, having a good employer brand saves you an average of 22% in reduced recruitment fees and yields 50% cost-per-hire savings.

Take it from personal experience:

Here’s a fun fact about me, I started at CPG in January of 2015 as a Marketing Intern. I worked hard and developed great relationships with the people here, and by the time May rolled around, I walked off the stage with my diploma and back through these doors as a permanent member of the team. Some of my fellow Millennials may be confused by my decision to stay in place and not chase the unknown, but I understood the opportunity in front of me.

Since I got my start here, my perception of the professional world is seen through the lens of this agency and its growth in the past year and a half. It’s because of this that I sometimes take for granted what makes our culture so special.

I offhandedly tell friends and family a story of how we have a beer together every Friday at 4 when the cart gets pushed around, or how Leadership will gather the whole team in real time to share news, both negative and positive, and am often met with a reaction of disbelief. They are not used to transparency and camaraderie being encouraged on that level in their workplace.

I won’t lie – seeing this reaction makes me feel lucky and pretty excited to come back to work the next day.

Okay, I’m done. Honeymoon over. Truthfully, the state of our current culture wasn’t achieved overnight, but we continue to learn and improve by listening to one another, and we implement what we can to make our environment one that inspires motivation and growth. Oh, and most importantly, we invest in meaningful change.

Invest in Your Company Culture

When you invest in your culture, you are really showing your employees that you consider them worth investing in. A willingness to allocate room in the budget to increase their satisfaction and engagement proves that you care about more than just the bottom line. But fear not…

Company Culture Deeply Affects the Bottom Line

The funny thing is that doing so almost always returns the investment and boosts your earnings in the end. Gallup reported that companies with engaged employees outperform those with unengaged employees by up to 200%. Yep, you read that right, two hundred percent!

The importance of company culture should be clear by now, and if you haven’t invested in it yet, it should be an urgent objective. Don’t let your people approach their work unmotivated, just going through the motions. It’s not fair to their potential or the potential of your business, and those benefits should outweigh any initial costs.

Think about it, you spend 40 hours a week at your job and around your coworkers. Who wouldn’t rather enjoy that experience? So get out there! Talk to your people, find out what is going to make their working lives better, and do everything within your power to deliver. Your business and your people will thank you!