Cultivating Great Culture

I feel like “Culture” is the new corporate buzzword. You see it in a hiring ad, “great culture”, or people define their work with “we have a great culture.” I hear it all the time; if I had a business, I’d have a great culture. Ok, and? It seems like no one really understands how or what that means. I’m not sure what it means for most businesses, but for me, it was the most important thing to get right.

When starting augustwenty I knew culture was going to be important. I knew it because I knew my employees. I think that is the first part of creating your culture. Knowing the type of employee you want to attract and keep.

augustwenty is in the IT space. For those of you that don’t know, IT is one of the hottest job markets in the country. That makes hiring and retaining talent extremely difficult. Wage wars ensue causing small business problems competing with larger startups and larger businesses. However, there are ways to compete. Benefits, employee perks and culture can make a huge difference. So, what is a good culture? Well, that depends on who you are trying to hire. For augustwenty, we wanted both experienced engineers and eventually inexperienced engineers. Therefore, we needed to appeal to a diverse group.

The first question I wanted to answer is what I would want. I have always believed that everything flows from the top. If I created a place where I I enjoyed working, so would everyone else. To do this I thought about what was important to me. Family—I wanted my employees to know that their family would always be most important. Not when it was convenient or easy, but always. Respect—I wanted them to know that I respected them as individuals. I respected their opinions and their needs. I may not always be able to accommodate everything, but I would always explain why. Transparency— they would know the direction of the company. They would always know where they stood professionally. Lastly, Freedom—I wanted them to know they were free to pursue their passions. If there was something they wanted to do other than what they were doing, we would support them in the transition.

With that said, perhaps you are asking where is the “you can work from home, we provide lunch, there is unlimited PTO?” To me, that isn’t culture. Culture is the foundation that you lay when you start your company. It is the principles that you form to create everything else. It doesn’t change. You live by it. Most importantly, the owners live by it. If they can’t live by it, it’s the wrong culture. Culture is your business. It will decide your success or failure. It will determine your legacy. Spend time on it.

Those other things…those are fluff. Those will change based on the “new thing.” Those things help someone choose to leave your business when the culture is wrong.

To Recap:

• Company Culture - the most important thing to get right. It is the foundation of your business and from where everything else evolves.

• Know the type of employee you want to work within your company.

• First question to ask when determining your culture— What is important to me?

• For augustwenty, top of list for importance:

  • Family - the employee’s families are important and matter

  • Respect - the employee is respected as a unique individual with opinions that matter

  • Transparency -clarity around direction of the company and where they stand professionally

  • Freedom - to pursue individual passions within or outside of the company with full support

For now,

Angela