So, you’ve got a pretty great thing going with your culture. You were intentional. You’ve hired people who have the skills and the personality to fit in well at your organization. The non-traditional benefits and flexibility have created trust and a relaxed atmosphere where employees feel the freedom to have a little fun at work. You have a mission statement with supporting values and you expect your employees to value these as well.
As you grow and over time, you may find it’s hard to keep your company culture alive. It’s not just a one-time set up. Your culture is just like a garden; it needs tending to – and as a CEO of a technology company, I have a few ways to help by applying some neat software.
- Ask for Feedback
TinyPulse is a tool (of many, Emplify, based in Indianapolis, is another great business) that allows for anonymous feedback from your employees. You can ask anything from “How happy are you at work” to “Who do you think will win the Super Bowl?” Each survey also includes a comment box for suggestions. In fact, some of our best ideas have been sourced from TinyPulse. What this really creates is a way for your employees to feel heard. If your employees feel heard it creates a real sense of inclusion, even if the feedback isn’t acted upon. We can’t always do everything, but it gives me and the leadership team an insight into culture. Further, it allows us to do on-boarding and off-boarding surveys, so that critical 90 days of a new hire’s journey is chronicled and scored. Finally, it’s “cheers for peers” function allows the team to reward hard work.
- Make Your Goals Public
Who said your goals have to stay safely guarded secrets? Make your goals known to your employees. Let everyone see the mountain top, so there is a collective awareness of where the company is heading. We use 15Five as a tool to share our goals – not just mine, but the entire management team’s goals are listed and updated weekly for all to see. Nothing creates transparency and accountability like public facing goals. Looking towards the future with your employees can be a powerful motivator, and who knows?
- Collaborate and Celebrate
Sounds simple enough, but your culture really starts at the top. Make sure no matter how much you grow or how stressful it gets that you live these values just as you would expect anyone else too. Your words, actions, and patterns of behavior should all be part of maintaining your culture every single day. Your every day should be a journey to creating a better company culture and sometimes that means exploring new ways to communicate, interact, and work alongside the rest of your team. We use Slack and integrate a lot of our customer feedback, TinyPulse, project, etc. feedback into a central place to share, laugh, work diligently and have a shared space. We are in the process of moving Slack to Microsoft Teams and will be using that tool to help support our continued collaboration and sharing. Remote work is great, but you need the right tools to handle the burden.
Your culture is vitally important to your success. Taking the time to be intentional and making sure you work to maintain all you’ve built is well worth the effort.
