25 TIPS how to improve company culture and achieve results

Building a company culture is a never-ending project. Just as people come and go, the company grows and various changes take place, so do company culture, relationships, commitment and atmosphere. The leaders of the organization are tasked with creating a healthy environment, having a vision (a plan for where we are going), a mission (what we do specifically for it) and values ​​(how we live together, work together and treat each other). After that, it is “just” necessary to form teams and look for people who agree with these plans and values.

How to ensure that even as the company grows, relationships between people remain high-quality? To keep employees loyal and engaged? We have prepared 25 tips for you.

Start with data collection and analysis

Regular interviews and surveys will tell us a lot:

1. Do a survey (it can be anonymous) and ask people what they like or don’t like, how they feel about the company, what you could improve on, and what they lack. Find out why employees work in your company and what motivates them to get up for work in the morning. Distribute the survey through multiple channels, including QR Codes in common areas, to ensure maximum accessibility and participation. You get a foundation to build on.
2. Include eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) in the survey as well. On a scale from 1 to 10, the employee rates how much they would recommend you as an employer to their friends. You can measure and evaluate this parameter regularly, so you can see how individual action steps worked and what actually changed over time.
3. Set up regular 1:1 meetings. Whether you choose a casual coffee on Friday after lunch or combine it with a weekly work update, it’s fine. It is important for employees to know that they can prepare any topics at that moment and do not have to wait, for example, for a meeting for the quarterly evaluation. You can thus identify potential departures in the bud and prevent dismissal or burnout.
4. Analyze employee turnover. What are the most common reasons for them leaving and how will you prevent them in the future?

Set action steps and priorities

Based on data from employees and management, determine what time and what we will work on. Prioritization is key.

1. Communicate the vision, mission and values ​​to the company.
2. Also communicate company-wide goals and company-wide strategy.
3. Determine your EVP (Employer Value Proposition) – what is your competitive advantage and why do employees work for you? You can also use it well in HR marketing strategy.
4. Communicate the results of employee surveys. Tell them what improvements you will be working on.
5. Involve the employee themselves in the improvement process – you increase their engagement when they see that they can contribute.
6. Give employees an update on what you’ve already done. Sometimes the changes are not so obvious at first glance, but they are definitely worth noting! 🙂

Build a good candidate experience

One of the key elements of building awareness of the company culture is how you present yourself and what you do during the recruitment process – from advertising to the actual job offer or rejection of the candidate. What expectations you create, how you deliver on agreements and how you are prepared to meet candidates, what atmosphere you create and how comfortable the candidate feels – it all counts. Based on these things, the candidate can say to himself: “I want to work in this company!”

1. Meet deadlines. When you agree with the candidate that you will get back to them by a certain date, don’t forget about it.
2. Make it a point to always be authentic and transparent.
3. Take care to create a pleasant atmosphere, both during a video call and during a personal meeting.
4. Talk not only about the job description, but also about the atmosphere in the company. You can also mention the results of the last survey.
5. If you reject a candidate, give them constructive and open feedback.

Sell ​​it out

How employees feel at work is the best basis for building employer branding. You can also work with it in recruitment campaigns. The biggest marketer is the employee himself.

1. Create a separate Instagram or Tiktok account through which you can show the atmosphere in the company. Be authentic there, in short, be who you really are in the company.
2. Involve employees themselves in content creation.
3. Choose “brand ambassadors” – they are most often employees who proactively prepare breakfasts, organize spontaneous drinks after work, trips and the like. You can give brand ambassadors space on social networks, but they can also be good “buddies” for new colleagues.
4. Prepare interesting events (in cooperation with brand ambassadors) to which you invite people from outside. Just choose an interesting topic, pay for a few beers and a pizza. Based on this, potential new colleagues can perceive you better and say that they want to work with you.

Build corporate culture even in hybrid/remote mode

One of the big changes affecting corporate culture is the hybrid or remote mode. Home-office is no longer a benefit – it is the standard. At the same time, companies are solving how to attract people back to the office in order to strengthen relationships and the company culture itself.

On the one hand, the hybrid or remote mode of recruitment is a plus, as it creates space for recruiting people from any part of the world and for the creation of a multicultural environment, increasing efficiency and productivity without the disruptive effects of open-space. On the other hand, there is a lack of space for chatting with colleagues over coffee or joint lunches, and for the possibility to resolve something quickly without planning video calls. Can you set things up so that the corporate culture is almost the same with the hybrid as when working from the office? So that people don’t feel disconnected?

1. As we mentioned above, it is important to set up regular 1:1 meetings where you can discuss not only work, but also what trips you are going on and what you have cooked.
2. Organize a breakfast together or a beer after work from time to time – in short, an event that will make people want to come to the office. You can combine it with a regular all-hands meeting.
3. Hold meetings at regular (perhaps biweekly) intervals and set a topic to discuss. Connect remote people online. It can also be about breakfast, which will take place both in the office and from home.
4. Give individual team-leaders or managers a budget for which they can take their team out for fun – bowling, laser tag, or perhaps dinner together.
5. Don’t know how to organize company-wide team building online? Try preparing a recipe for which you send employees a list of ingredients to buy (or you can have them delivered to their homes by courier). Making dinner together online can be a lot of fun. 🙂
6. In apps like Discord, you can create virtual rooms where people join and discuss topics according to their preferences. There can be several rooms, and it doesn’t matter if you divide them by department (IT, HR, creatives, accountants) or by activity (game-night, brainstorming, lunch break, etc.). There are many options.

Employee experience has its limitations for remote people. Larger companies can improve it, for example, by introducing a Remote Ambassador, who coordinates activities for remote employees throughout the entire organization, collects feedback and involves remote colleagues in internal activities. Smaller companies may consider assigning this work task to a specific person from the HR team.