How To Create a Company Culture in 6 Steps

Company culture is one of the first things prospective hires look for when researching potential employers. Having a clearly defined and positive organizational culture can help you attract competitive candidates, streamline processes, reduce employee turnover and boost overall productivity, among several other benefits.

In this article, we discuss what company culture is, how it benefits both employers and employees and how to create a successful company culture step by step.

What is company culture?

A company culture describes the beliefs and values of an organization and often includes its long-term goals, mission statement and work environment characteristics and employee behavior.

For instance, company culture could include the organization’s dress code and/or whether the relationship between management and their team is casual or formal. These factors, along with other internal and external factors—like a company’s location—contribute to the organization’s social environment.

Company culture is unique to each business, but several factors can determine the type of workplace culture that exists in an organization, including:

• A company’s mission statement
• Onboarding processes
• Hiring decisions
• Work hours
• Location
• Communication
• Transparency
• Management style
• Internal procedures
• Customer service
• Office traditions

• Benefits

Some employees might like to work in an environment that leans more toward cultivation and collaboration, while others might want to work in an environment that leans more toward defined regulations and hierarchies. A company’s management style determines these characteristics.

Benefits of a positive company culture

There are several benefits to implementing and maintaining a positive organizational culture for your company, including:

• Engaged and happy employees
• Lower employee turnover rates
• Reduced recruitment and retention costs
• Increased team morale
• Higher productivity and better overall output

• Positive company image

How to create a positive company culture

Company culture starts from the top, but employees also share the responsibility in promoting it. To foster good company culture, introduce new team members to the company’s mission statement, its core values and its culture code as part of the onboarding process. These also serve as tools for prospective hires who need to determine whether they can thrive in the company.

1. Define your company’s purpose and values

Consider what your organization is most interested in, what your goals are and why you do what you do. Start brainstorming what makes the company unique, your values and vision for the short- and long-term journey of your company.

It’s also helpful to take a closer look at your opportunities for improvement as a company, in both culture and attainable goals. Examine your current processes, productivity and overall employee wellness and achievements. Look for areas where you excel and ways you could improve, and analyze how you might be better.

2. Research the competition

If you can’t quite define your purpose in an actionable or positive way, look to your competitors—or even outside of your industry or niche—to get inspiration. Review their mission statements, branding and vision language to piece together goals or values you resonate with your company and team.

3. Ask your employees

Employees are integral to establishing a company’s culture. Innovative companies thrive in company cultures where management shows team members they are valued. All employees play a role and are united around a common goal.

The way your team interacts can set a standard for how the organization functions overall. For instance, if your employees have respectful, outgoing relationships, the company might have a more positive culture.

To get actionable feedback on how to shape a mutually beneficial work culture, consider surveying employees with the following questions in a group meeting or as an anonymous write-in exercise:

• Do you enjoy working here?
• What do you like best/least about working here?
• How could we improve our company culture?
• Do you feel your opinion is valued? If no, how could we improve?
• Do you feel you know and agree with company goals?
• Do you feel listened to?
• How often in the last month have you spoken to your supervisor?
• How could we boost productivity or improve team morale?

• How do you think we could improve our company culture?

4. Create a vision and/or mission statement

Once you have gathered findings from competitors and employees and brainstormed how to shape your company culture with team values and goals, you will need to create a vision and/or mission statement.

The mission statement is a concise message that explains what your organization wants to do with the company and product. A business’ core values are the guiding principles of that company. These values are important because they are tied to a company’s identity, support the vision of the business owner and serve as a foundation for the internal culture.

Consider creating a formal statement to introduce job candidates and new hires to your company’s culture. Besides containing the company’s mission statement and the list of core values, the culture code should contain:

• A guide to how employees can work and live by the company’s values
• Descriptions of company traditions

• Sections that discuss any other shared beliefs

The code might even contain testimonials from current employees. Businesses should also update their company code regularly to reflect the development of their values and how well it’s succeeding in its mission. As a manager, you might play a vital part in updating this code.

5. Make a plan to implement

Take your research, goals and mission and vision statements and start creating a step-by-step plan to implement new processes and goals to shape your company culture. Refer to your mission and vision statements when creating an action plan and start planning according to company, department and project goals.

Consider team resources, budget and timeframes and remember that the process to an ideal and sustainable positive work culture is constantly evolving and can be revised along the way, if certain processes aren’t productive.

6. Continually promote good company culture

Implementing a new company culture takes time and effort, but by continually promoting and reaffirming the tenets of your goals and values, you can typically do it more effectively.

For example, you might take extra time to ensure new hires feel welcome by the team through a comprehensive and friendly onboarding process or to follow up with existing employees to ask what you can do to better support them in their projects. Continually surveying your employees and customers can help ensure you’re improving and maintaining your company culture.