What is Company Culture?

“Known by many companies as ‘Human Resources’. People operations are where science and human resources intersect. And it’s what keeps Google a top-performing company.”

In business, we often hear of the term culture. However, the term culture as applied in business is something that is often misunderstood, and too often, business owners and management teams do not develop this strategically. What is company culture exactly, and what makes it so important?

Company culture is how the people within the company behave, communicate, interact and work together. It is often described as the company’s personality. The leadership team(s) need to build company culture as it develops irrespective.

When the leadership play an active and transparent role within the building of the company culture, it is influenced by the vision, mission, values and beliefs of the company and conduct of the management team and business owner. Company culture is developed naturally over a period of time. If the leadership team does not actively drive and build it, it will, by default, be developed by the workforce and based on their personal experience and interpretation of the workplace as well as their personal feelings towards the leadership.

Most employees personal and day-to-day experience of the workplace is not rainbows, unicorns and the joys of all those things that year-end office parties comprise of. Therefore, the leadership team must expect that the reality of the company culture is somewhat strained and more negative than positive from the perspective of the general workforce.

We are one big happy family – right?

When business owners/management teams believe that it is not necessary to create and consistently build and actively work on company culture, it becomes the first nail in the coffin. It then becomes a blind belief that the culture is one which is, “we are one big happy family” and “everyone loves working here”. This is a sentiment which is often believed based on the facts, such as jokes are cracked whenever management is in a good mood, and every December there is a big year-end office party that everyone “loves”.

The notion that “we are one big happy family; everyone loves working here” cannot exist without consistent excellence within management and leadership practices. It cannot exist if the only time laughter is shared is determined by the mood of those in charge. It cannot exist if, for 11 months of the year, the general workforce are treated as numbers, are undervalued, and are more fearful of the leadership team than they are not. “We are one big happy family; everyone loves working here” is something that is built and takes considerable effort and consistent application therein.

How NOT to cross into the friend-zone.

I am not advocating that the employee-employer relationship be one of BFF’s (Best Friends Forever). There must be mutual respect. Boundaries must be put in place between the employee and the employer and within all management and subordinate relationships. These boundaries must be communicated and be understood by the employee as it prevents the employee from making assumptions as to what the boundaries are and to what extent they exist.

The relationship must be consistent within its application of objectivity and fair labour practice. It will then be a relationship which is trusted and valued by the employee. The employee will believe and understand that communication, decisions, access and instructions are not based upon the personal feeling, personal insecurities, personal opinions or personal frustrations of management.

The relationship herein can be one which is friendly, positive and fair and guided by the values and beliefs of the business. Additionally, management can adopt an open-door policy by implementing a Grievance Procedure.

The important questions are, “What do you want your company culture to be? What motivates your people and inspires your people to be more productive, loyal and drives a strong competitive advantage?”

We want to be like Google!

Much of Google’s success can be attributed to its culture and the strategic approach in which they have aligned assisting their people to productivity and job commitment via a well-planned monitored and consistently applied culture. Google employs more than 100 000 employees worldwide. They are renowned for excellence in Company culture. Google is considered the panacea in attracting career opportunists.

A small list of the amenities to be found there:

• Several café stations where employees can gather to eat free food and have conversations
• Snack rooms stocked with goodies ranging from candy to healthy foods like carrots and yoghurt
• Exercise rooms
• Game rooms with video games, foosball, pool tables and ping-pong

Besides the above, Google employees receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes, not only medical and dental coverage but a host of other services. These include a Global Education Leave Programme that is fully covered by the company, a childcare centre, adoption assistance services, an on-site doctor, financial planning classes and lots of opportunities to gather with coworkers at special corporate events.

“A Culture Built on Qualitative and Quantitative Data”

As author, Zach Bulygo, stated in his article Inside Google’s Culture of Success and Employee Happiness, “Human resources, or People Operations, is a science at Google. They’re always testing to find ways to optimize their people, both in terms of happiness and performance. In fact, almost everything Google does is based off data. So it should come as no surprise that Google uses all sorts of data to gauge employees and improve their productivity”

Of course, not all companies have the resources available to provide their employees with free meals and nap pods as Google does. Your business culture can be just as effective as Google, provided it is something that is built and not assumed.