In the modern market, usually the most successful companies have an attractive company culture capable of retaining top talent. What are the keys to cultivating and maintaining this seemingly mythical concept? It all starts with a team mentality and you are the coach. Here’s the game plan for a successful company culture:
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Focus on Good Fits
When you think of hiring a new professional, one of the first items on your checklist is probably a proven track record of productivity. However, it should be a personality that’ll fit well with your company culture. Even if your new hire is capable of producing large volumes of quality work, that doesn’t necessarily constitute a positive contribution to the team environment.
What’s the moral of the story? Don’t hire jerks no matter how productive they are or how impressive their resume is. Remember, your employees represent your company even when they are off the clock. Will you latest hire do the company image justice?
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Make Your Company Values Obvious
Perhaps one of the top recommended interview questions is “why do you want to work for this company?” It’s designed to give you insight into each professional’s motives, personal goals and knowledge of the company. If you want to draw top talent to your cause, you have to make your company values known.
For example, Google has no problem attracting top talent because it has a clear reputation for high quality, intelligent algorithms and encouraging employee creativity. Whatever your company values are, make them known and find professionals attracted to your values.
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Management Doesn’t Always Have the Better Idea
Let’s head back to the trusty Google example. Most large companies allow little freedom to their employees regarding projects and daily tasks. However, Google News, a current staple of the search engine platform, was not a management idea.
A Google research scientist created it after 9/11 because he wanted to see multiple news sources at one time and chooses the focus of the articles. This a classic example of how giving your employees the freedom to make decisions and figure things out is key to company growth and market relevance.
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Make the Team More Important Than the Individual
Every single one of these four points is designed to help you make your organization work culture an inviting one capable of attracting and keeping top talent. Making the team more important helps foster that. When professionals enjoy whom they work with, they are more motivated to complete tasks effectively. Why? The motivation has little to do with pleasing management and more to do with being there for their peers. Don’t encourage your team members to hog the ball. Instead, focus on a symbiotic system.
When you consider these four factors of a great company culture, they certainly make sense in a general context, but its up to you to implement these suggestions in a way that will help your company thrive and attract quality professionals. Always keep what’s best for the team in mind and stay focused on the big picture: company success.
