A powerful company culture is one of the major ingredients for business success. It informs your discretionary decisions as a business owner, and it allows your employees to work without supervision, enjoy their job, and remain as highly productive as possible. In addition, it sends positive signals about your business to customers, potential investors, and other people who are associated with your business.
Contrary to what most people think, you don't necessarily have to run a big business to create a solid culture. Even if your business is a small one with very few employees or a small target market, a company culture is necessary because people—not machines—are involved. So, if you're looking to grow your business significantly within a short period, then take your company culture more seriously.
Here are three proven tips on how to develop a solid company culture, and they work for any business, regardless of size, industry, or target market.
1. Define your legacy
Your first step towards creating a company culture is to decide what kind of organization you want to have and what you hope to achieve in the future. In addition to a clear and consistent vision, your legacy also includes what you want both employees and customers to say or think about your business.
By clearly defining your legacy, you'll be able to create a template for your company culture. And you'll wind up with a culture that all players—directors, employees, investors, customers, etc.—can easily relate with and adapt to.
However, be sure to make your legacy stand out. A good company culture should be consistently authentic and should represent the unique voice of the founder or the leadership team.
2. Choose the right company structure
Although it’s a common practice to start out as a sole trader and then incorporate later, this is not recommended. Aside its several other benefits, starting out as a limited liability company would help to create a professional image for your business—which is one of the goals of company culture.
Incorporating or forming a company is now easier than ever. You can simply visit the website of any of the agencies that provide help to form a company. Be sure to choose a company formation service provider that caters to businesses in your state or country.
3. Put people first
Companies like Google and Apple understand this point, and that partly explains why they're powerful global brands. Developing a company culture involves factoring in the welfare of the people who matter most to your business, especially your employees. Paying a decent monthly salary isn't enough to get the best out of them. To really keep them happy and motivated, you need to treat them like human beings, not like clocks that work all the time.
Having a company culture that cares about your employees will lead to increased productivity and enthusiasm about work. They will stay longer, work harder, and achieve bigger results. So, give them breaks that are long enough to relax and refresh, opportunities to brainstorm for new ideas, opportunities to meet new people and learn new things, and rewards for each outstanding achievement.
4. Welcome ideas from everywhere
No matter how skilled or experienced you are, you won't have the right answers all the time. And that's why you should always welcome opinions, ideas, and suggestions from everyone--including employees and customers. You never know who would drop a million dollar idea that will instantly boost the fortunes of your company.
For example, the Google News tool was the brainchild of Krishna Bharat, one of Google's research scientists. If Google hadn't encouraged him to come forward with the idea, it will most likely have remained dormant in his brain until now.
Welcoming and implementing ideas and suggestions from your employees makes them feel important. And it motivates them to keep brainstorming for even better ideas because they also want to be part of your company's success story.
