In every business, no matter how large or small, you work with others. Going to work means daily interaction with your fellow co-workers and workplace. Many people spend more time with their co-workers and workplace than they do their actual personal lives. So what keeps these employees happy and motivated? Company culture. It is a combined atmosphere that each workplace must consider, embrace, and nurture. It’s not just the people you work with or your everyday tasks. It’s a combination of absolutely everything you come in contact with, from the parking lot to the desk or chair you are at, or even the truck you drive (if it’s a company provided vehicle). Every one of these aspects is what makes up company culture.
So how does company culture affect the company and why should management care about it? According to an article from Forbes.com over 1,400 executives said that for a company to thrive, a healthy company culture is essential, such as this quote from Google CEO Larry Page: “Make sure everybody in the company has great opportunities, has a meaningful impact and is contributing to the good of society.“. Google, Facebook, and Apple have made a reputation for themselves as being great places to work for because of their culture, and as a result are consistently in the top spots of great places to work. Each has a unique blend of culture which caters to their employee types. For example, Google has a resort style work campus that has many benefits such as a concierge service to run errands for employees, and free gourmet snacks and meals. Facebook has a fun, active, and leading edge culture such as having team meetings on the top of the roof. Apple is more of a perfectionist, idealist, and inventor type of culture, where employees strive to make the best products. If you notice through these three companies, they are all on the leading edge of their respective categories of work and many believe that company culture plays a big role in this. A valued, happy employee will be a harder and better worker than one that does not feel valued and is constantly unhappy with their workplace.
Keep in mind you may not see immediate benefits from a company culture initiative or change. Take a look at the study done by the Wall Street Journal where they looked at 95 different car dealerships and monitored them over 6 years. They noticed that the dealerships that had the less satisfied employees showed lower profits in the later years. The reason for this is that in the beginning the original customers that bought cars from the dealerships noticed the happier employees were more pleasant to deal with so in return they now have repeat business with that customer.
If company culture has not been focused on then it can be difficult to make a change as employees get used to a certain way they begin to resist change especially if the culture has not exactly been positive, they may feel as if it is being forced and feel that management is being “dominant”.
As an employee at Technologic Systems I can honestly say that our company culture is on the positive side of the spectrum. Our management cares about our well being, they strive to better us, and they listen to our ideas and possible solutions to problems. The company also does many things for us, we get incentives to come up with ideas, they give us unheard of benefit rates, they are very family oriented, which I have found is a dying quality that improves company culture. Our CEO still plays a large role in our company as he still designs our products and his open door policy is well known and it is truly open door. He creates a relaxed environment through his personal connections with everybody in the company. This all to me creates a great company culture which provides, from what I have seen, efficient employees, and a strong customer service attention (as our customers have frequently testified) which interprets to continued sales and word of mouth networking. My personal experience as an employee with company culture is on a daily basis I am surrounded by happy employees. The majority of us at the company agree this is the best place we have worked for and that they treat us very well with benefits packages, random catered lunches, company tubing trips, and a nice holiday party that is family oriented and fun. My company makes me feel valued and appreciated and in return I am willing to do what I can to make sure that I make them happy and feel valued too so that as a team we can grow. Here at Technologic Systems, being happy is an easy thing to do. As an RMA technician having daily customer contact, being happy makes a big difference in the emails and phone calls to our customers. Company culture to me is definitely a real and effective tool to assist with improving efficiency in production, marketing, and support which ultimately reflect in sales and efficiency.