What is company culture?
Chances are if you’re reading this article, you’re already attuned to both the importance of having a strong company culture and the world of confusion on how to build one. Let me fill you in.
In the simplest of terms, company culture is the personality of a company. It guides some of the most fundamental and key decisions a company makes. Including who you should employ and how your employees should behave. The guiding values that form company culture are sewn into the fabric of a business. Regardless of whether or not a company spends time cultivating them, it’s important to create these values with good intentions and diligence.
It is equally important to note what culture is not. Often times we confuse benefits and perks as the culture of a company. Of course, a great benefits package plays a role in attracting talent. However, the truth is, they have very little effect on the engagement and retention of employees. A poor culture cannot be replaced by a fruit bowl in the kitchen or a foosball table in the break room. In fact, nothing is as powerful as a strong and engaging culture that drives your company’s performance forward.
How culture shapes your business
Strong company culture has the ability to turn your employees into a high-functioning team, reaching both their potential and that of the business. In addition to increased performance and alignment, good company culture has the ability to attract, retain and motivate top talent. Not to mention, in a world where only 29% of millennials are engaged at work, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to increase employee satisfaction and engagement while you’re at it.
A good company culture engages your entire workforce with the vision of the company. Which is a crucial factor in delivering a strong sense of purpose to your employees. Furthermore, it guides and aligns employee behavior and decision making on a daily basis. Both of these are fundamental to a successful culture.
Whereas on the other hand, poor company culture can lead to a decrease in employee engagement, motivation, retention and ultimately a less than optimal performance. The pernicious influence of a negative culture may not be obvious at first, however, the results of such end up costing you money and time, and leave your business with a great idea and only mediocre results.
Understand your culture with the company culture template
Despite the fact that strong company culture is no longer a ‘nice to have’, rather, a ‘must-have’, the truth remains that most executives, managers, and HR struggle to understand and create their culture.
The first step in understanding your company culture is developing the ideal foundational and structural values of your culture (eg: a culture of feedback, transparency, work-life balance, etc…).
Secondly, you need to develop a system that monitors culture performance. Company culture can be affected by many factors, and may actually be different across different departments within the same organization. Hence the increased need to analyze and measure culture on a level-specific basis. Enough to identify exactly where the problem is coming from, so you know where to apply the solution.
The template is designed specifically with that in mind. Culture Barometer is a tool that allows you to accurately measure your company’s culture. Get a copy of the company culture template here.
Measure how each value is performing on a department/team basis and company-wide. Use the Dashboard to get a clear overview of how your company is performing culture-wise.
How it works
Read through the instructions tab on the company culture template. There, you will be able to create as many copies as you have departments of the input spreadsheet. The Form to collect employee responses is already attached to each spreadsheet. Share the spreadsheets with all of your department heads. They then monitor the scores each employee has given the company culture.
Connect to master dashboard
Inside your master spreadsheet, go to Add-ons > Sheetgo > Start to open the Sheetgo add-on. If you do not have it installed yet, go to Get add-ons and install Sheetgo for free. Select all of your department spreadsheets as source files, and consolidate all Form responses into your master file.
Automate your dashboard
Use the ‘Data preparation’ tab to change the formulas based on your department spreadsheets’ names. Update your dashboard accordingly.
Conclusion
Collect insights and data from your company culture to increase accuracy in problem identification and solution effectiveness.
If you are interested in other templates to automate your HR department, take a look at this OKRs template by Sheetgo.
