Your company culture permeates through everything you do, including the image you project for your brand. If you want people to see you in a certain way, it all starts with how you and your employees interact and the core values of your organization.
In the annual Job Seeker Nation Report, researchers found over 50% of employees are open to finding a new job. If you want to grow your brand, you must keep the best talent you have. You spend time and money training your employees, so you don’t want to lose them. Your company culture can be a top selling point to attracting and keeping the best candidates.
Why do great branding and a strong company culture go hand-in-hand? Here are the reasons they mesh together and impact one another.
1. Find an Overarching Purpose
What is the main objective of your company? Why did you start the company in the first place? Your purpose needs to focus on your customers. How will you help them? What pain point do they face that you can solve?
Once you have a main goal, make sure you share it with everyone in your company. Everything you do should help accomplish your purpose.
2. Encourage Your Sales Team
The key element to success is the sales culture of your company. However, your strategy must also encompass your brand’s mission and how you want the outside world to see you. Once you understand the why of what you do as a business, you can better define your goals.
Your sales team needs revenue goals, but you must also give them something of substance to hold onto. If your purpose involves helping your clients, your sales team can dig into ways to be more effective with customers.
3. Mesh Brand and Culture
The two work in close conjunction with one another to develop personality for your business. Your brand image is how the outside world sees you. However, your employees are a part of that outside world. They tell family and friends how you treat them, if they love their job, if they feel part of something important or if they hate working there.
A strong company culture helps others see the benefits of your business for customers and employees. Locally, your staff and their families may make up your client base. Take the time to treat your workers well and you’ll likely benefit from loyal buyers.
4. Decrease Turnover
Since a big portion of employees say they’d leave their jobs for another opportunity, businesses may be failing at the company culture game. Ideally, all the hours of recruitment and training you invest in someone pays off by them staying with your brand for years.
If your company culture is one that mixes well with the employee’s personality, they’re likely to feel more engaged and stay with you. Retaining employees helps branding because you gain experienced people who know what your brand is about. They can articulate what you do and why you do it to leads.
5. Encourage Creativity
In a recent survey of 300,000 millennial workers, researchers discovered 90% of them want to stay with their current employer and invest in a company. However, if the company doesn’t invest in them, trust them, pay them fairly or has poor policies, they’ll leave.
Spend time training your workers. Pay for them to take a class. Send them to a trade conference. However, you must also develop a culture that trusts those you’ve hired. Give them the creativity to come up with new solutions.
Let them take the time for brainstorming sessions on how best to market your brand. Reward properly those who step out of the box and come up with a successful new idea or even just try something new.
6. Make People Care
When your workers feel satisfied, they care whether or not your company is successful. Those who care about your brand’s success are much more likely to do everything they can to help showcase your mission as a company.
They’ll spread word-of-mouth marketing and tell others about where they work and what your company does. They’ll encourage family and friends to try your products and services. Companies such as Google are known for their employee perks. What do you offer that none of your competitors do? What makes your brand unique?
How To Build a Great Company Culture
You may already understand how building a great company culture leads to positive branding. However, the steps to get to a strong, cohesive workspace takes a bit of effort. Here are some ways to build a great company culture both in-person and virtually.
- Offer team building activities so people relate better to one another and understand personalities.
- Host daily scrum meetings either in the office or via Zoom. Keep them short and goal-oriented for that day’s tasks.
- Plan for fun times, such as a dessert hour or virtual meet up where people can win prizes and chat in a less structured setting.
- Set the example as a leader. Treat others with respect and kindness. Let it be known you expect the same from your staff.
Building a great company culture takes time. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen overnight. Fix any problem areas, hire and promote the right people and keep your company’s purpose in mind.
Involve All Departments
If you want a strong company culture, you must share your goals with the heads of each department and reach out to every employee. Make your purpose clear to the janitor up to the chief executive officer. Over time, your brand will be known as a great place to work with a singular mission for the world.
Eleanor is the editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the director at a marketing agency prior to becoming a freelance web designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and dog, Bear.