Corporate culture isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the heartbeat of an organization. It shapes how employees interact, how decisions are made, and, ultimately, how successful a company can be.
A strong corporate culture fosters trust, engagement, and alignment with company values, while a weak one can lead to disengagement, high turnover, and inefficiency.
The good news is that corporate culture isn’t set in stone; it can be nurtured, refined, and continuously improved. This article delves into intentional actions that you can take to create a successful culture and why they are important.
What is corporate culture?
Corporate culture is the shared values, norms, and routines that shape how employees interact and work within an organization. It influences everything from decision-making and leadership styles to daily interactions and company traditions. A healthy company culture creates consistency, fosters collaboration, and helps employees align with the company’s mission and goals.
A healthy corporate culture creates a positive reciprocal loop, fueling the individuals and organization as a whole.
Why is corporate culture important?
The benefits of building community at work stem from a well-defined corporate culture that promotes belonging, trust, and shared purpose. When employees feel connected through common values and routines, they are more engaged, motivated, and productive. This sense of belonging enhances teamwork and innovation, and contributes to long-term success by reducing turnover and strengthening company identity.
Corporate culture impacts:
- Employee engagement and morale: A positive culture fosters a sense of purpose and belonging, boosting employee commitment and job satisfaction.
- Organizational behaviors and norms: Company culture sets the standard for expected conduct, encouraging cooperation, respect, and ethical behavior among staff.
- Communication: Healthy and helpful communication is often a product of a positive company culture, allowing teams to share ideas, feedback, and, in turn, success.
- Attraction and retention of talent: A good company culture attracts top talent and retains employees by offering a work environment that aligns with their values and needs. That’s how big companies like Google attract and retain talent.
- Performance: When employees feel a sense of membership, understanding, and motivation, goals are achieved, deadlines are met, and bottlenecks are removed with much more ease and efficiency.
These individual elements all contribute to a thriving organization, improving company culture and performance, and avoiding easy traps and management mistakes.
7 Tips to develop and maintain workplace culture
Improving company culture starts with intentional actions, not vague aspirations. From ensuring leadership leads by example to fostering open communication and recognition, every interaction shapes the work environment.
Whether your team is in-office, hybrid, or fully remote, consistent efforts to align culture with company values can lead to a more motivated, collaborative, and successful workforce. Let’s explore how.
1. Clearly define your culture and values
When employees know the company’s core beliefs and behaviors, they are more likely to align their actions with these standards, fostering a cohesive, consistent, and positive work environment. This clarity promotes stronger employee engagement and a sense of belonging, and helps attract like-minded talent, making it easier to maintain a positive and productive workplace with a good company culture over time.
For example, this woman-owned and operated organization has its mission very clearly stated on its website, and shares the actions the company takes to act in accordance with its organizational culture and values. This clarity helps attract and retain talent that will strengthen the organization’s mission.
You can do this by:
- Highlighting your values during recruitment and onboarding: Show potential and new employees that your values matter from the get-go. Including this information when hiring and onboarding ingrains the importance that your values hold in company culture.
- Including your values on your website: Make what your organization stands for crystal clear by sharing it on your website. This makes them not only easily accessible, but also highlights that you lead with them, and are happy to be held accountable for them.
- Placing physical value posters in-office: Create posters that remind employees of your organization’s values and the expectations around them. Having this reminder around your office ensures your values are front of mind for the entire team.
2. Ensure leadership exemplifies organizational culture
Psychologist Susan Fiske says, “Attention is directed up the hierarchy,” meaning employees pay more attention to, and know more about, the people in control than those higher ups do about them. When bosses become more self-centered, this behavior is mimicked by those underneath.
Employees look to leadership for guidance on how to behave and what values to prioritize, so leading by example is crucial for developing and maintaining a strong company culture. When leaders embody the organization’s culture, they set a clear standard for others to follow, creating trust and alignment across teams.
You can do this by:
- Developing a Core Values Statement: This document defines and communicates how you choose to operate, make decisions, behave, and interact on a day-to-day basis.
- Practicing open communication: Sharing the company’s growth and the challenges it’s facing, and allowing team members to ask questions and provide feedback shows that transparency and honesty are valued within the organization.
- Demonstrating work-life balance: Taking time off for personal well-being encourages team members to do the same, and sending reminders about the importance of disconnecting after work hours ensures employees that they should feel free to leave work at work. For example, if you’re choosing to work on a Saturday, schedule that email to send on Monday! That way, your team can enjoy their free time without feeling guilty about not responding immediately.
3. Encourage employee recognition at all levels
Employee recognition doesn’t stop at top-down praise; it thrives when peers and leaders celebrate each other’s contributions. This creates a good company culture of appreciation, boosting morale and motivation.
You can do this by:
- Publicly recognizing employees: Public recognition of employees for their role in a project builds morale and engagement—both for the recognized employee and others looking on. Examples include managers acknowledging achievements and formal reward systems for exceptional work.
- Encouraging peer-to-peer recognition: Foster community and collaboration by creating a peer recognition process for employees to acknowledge the achievements of others in the organization.
4. Build strong employee relationships
When employees feel connected, they’re more likely to be engaged and motivated. Heyflow, a software company, shares on a LinkedIn post what makes their culture special, highlighting a fun, team-building company outing. Creating a company culture where strong relationships can thrive leads to better teamwork, job satisfaction, and employee retention.
You can do this by:
- Offering team-building opportunities: Ensure your team connects with each other by hosting team-building events and workshops for them to take part in.
- Providing mentorship opportunities: Connect junior team members with a senior mentor to support them in their work and provide guidance for their professional career.
5. Prioritize trust, transparency, and communication
When a company establishes a corporate culture that prioritizes trust, transparency, and communication, it creates an environment where employees feel valued, heard, and supported.
This strengthens collaboration, encourages innovation, and enhances overall productivity. Ultimately, companies with a positive, communicative culture see lower turnover rates and higher employee satisfaction, leading to long-term success.
You can do this by:
- Actively soliciting feedback: Listen to employee thoughts and feedback to ensure they feel heard. Then, act on that feedback to show your team that you value their contributions and concerns.
- Being consistent: Don’t say one thing and do another. Follow through on your commitments and maintain consistent standards of behavior across your organization.
6. Welcome feedback
In a healthy workplace environment, there are no mistakes, only opportunities to learn and grow. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, encourages embracing challenges and learning from them.
Welcoming feedback is crucial to fostering a positive company culture of continuous improvement and innovation. In today’s diverse workplace, we have to find creative solutions and create spaces to share feedback.
You can do this:
- In-office: Hold regular “open-door” feedback sessions where employees can share their thoughts with leadership in a comfortable, informal setting.
- Hybrid: Use collaborative tools like virtual “feedback circles” to invite input from both in-office and remote employees, ensuring inclusivity in the process.
- Remote: Implement anonymous surveys or virtual suggestion boxes, offering employees a private platform to voice opinions and ideas.
7. Include corporate culture in everything you do
From training activities to office parties, corporate culture is in the fabric of everything you do as an organization. Ensure that employees understand not only the “how” but also the “why” behind their work to create a more engaged, aligned, and motivated team.
You can do this by:
- Customizing training programs to align with the organization’s values and goals.
- Hosting team-building events that emphasize company values, like volunteer days or company retreats.
- Incorporating company culture-focused discussions into regular team meetings reinforces the connection between individual roles and the company’s mission.
Prioritize your corporate culture with professional support
Company culture is a communal act, created step by step. To create a healthy workplace environment that inevitably leads to success in your field, get support from corporate culture professionals.
Whether your organization needs help training a remote team, boosting cross-cultural understanding in the midst of a global merger, or meeting performance goals, professional support can be a big help.
At Comprehensive Learning Solutions (CLS), we provide creative, straightforward solutions for improving company culture through development and training. From curriculum development to customizable courses, we offer workplace learning advice backed by over 30 years of industry experience.
Contact us today to improve your company culture.
