The Value of Company Culture for Employees & Organizations

What is “Company Culture”?

If you are asked, “What is the company culture like where you work?”, what are the first things that come to mind? This is a question that I have been spending time with recently. I’ve been asked to write about Snaptech Marketing’s workplace culture for a new page on this website. After thinking about the question, what I decided to do was ask all of the current Snaptech employees.

Each response was informative and insightful, which led me to a new problem: how can I distill many valid answers into a brief summary of Snaptech’s culture? Can that even be done?

How Do We Define Company Culture?

Let me attempt to answer that question by defining what it is I’m trying to tackle. From my perspective the workplace culture of a business is established in two major ways:

• By the direction given by the business’ owners and senior management
• By the employees that make up the company’s workforce

Here’s an example of how I see it: the owner of a company can establish the tone and atmosphere of a workplace by establishing workplace rules, procedures, ethical considerations and, yes, penalties if severe incidents happen. If you make suggestions that bring a positive return for the business, an employee could be rewarded in several different ways: recognition, financial compensation, advancement of job title, and so on. If an employee breaks a company rule of sufficient size (like stealing money), termination of their employment can happen.

OK, so there’s the foundation of establishing a company’s culture.

But what can improve or detract from company culture are the employees. Creating a positive work environment is the first step in running a good business, but just like having a garden, you need to be maintaining it to ensure things look good.

Saying “we run a good business and the people here are treated well” is the starting point, but without demonstrating it, the employees won’t believe it. It’s just lip service.

Therefore, the feedback that comes from a business’ employees, whether it’s positive or negative, also contributes to the company’s culture. Employees don’t need to be bad mouthing a business, or stealing from it, to be seen as negative actions. From what I’ve read the best workplaces are where employees can raise concerns, try to improve working conditions and compensations, and create an attitude of having ownership in their jobs. A dull, uninspired, difficult to improve upon workspace can be just as negative as a toxic active one.

How Snaptech’s Workplace Culture Is Seen & Assessed

Now that I’ve established a baseline let’s get into what Snaptech’s employees had to say when it comes to defining company culture.

As I mentioned I was hoping to find commonalities between what people said. Instead, there was diversity in their thoughts.

As the person assigned to summarize what Snaptech’s culture is, I also thought at first that was a problem. I’ve come to change my mind on that.

I’ll explain myself better after I share the feedback.

How the Snaptech Team Describes & Values the Company Culture

Genuine: “There is a willingness to help from my peers. I don’t feel stupid asking for help, or asking a question.”

Community: “I like being part of a company that gives part of our time to helping the community out, like with the volunteer events.”

Balanced: “Work/life balance is something that receives proper attention and focus, not just word service.”

Humility: “We keep our egos in check. We’re experts in what we do but we don’t let it go to our heads.”

Safe: “This is a work environment where everyone’s individual identity is welcomed and accepted.”

Retention: “Snaptech cares about keeping employees happy and growing in their career.”

Hunger: “I get to stay current, share new developments with the team. We write wiki pages to educate each other.”

Unity: “There’s a good bond. We want to keep pushing ourselves as a team.”

Autonomy: “You are given the power to shape your clients’ results.”

Flexibility: “Snaptech is open to working holidays and social events. You are trusted to choose your working hours, and also your work style. That’s huge in every aspect.”

Supportive: “People are willing to help out. Less burnout, better mental health.”

Peer Environment: “Everyone pulls their own weight,”

Humanity: “We recognize that we can all make mistakes and we can learn from them. Everyone can have a bad day but it’s how you respond to those days that you control.”

Fun Balance: “We’re professional but also don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Multicultural: “People from all over the world are my workmates. We represent different cultures, identities, and we can co-exist and respect each other.”

These are a lot of worthy thoughts. Do you see the difficulty I now face is getting this all down to a couple of ideas?

Well, it’ll happen somehow. The mountain will be climbed.

So, What’s It All Come Down To?

Here’s the TL;DR.

Ask any one employee what the company culture is and you’ll get a unique answer depending on who they are.

A young worker just beginning their career can take for granted, or even get upset, if they don’t see diversity in their workplace and fellow employees. They’ve grown up in a world where open discussions about gender identity, discrimination scandals and justice for wronged individuals, and a host of other once taboo subjects are now expected to be aired and publicly discussed.

An older worker, one that’s been subject to some of these wrongs, might see the frankness and openness of such a workplace as a hugely beneficial advantage. Or even, perhaps too open and too much information.

Establishing the tone for a company’s culture comes from the founders but then it quickly evolves as new faces board the business. If the management allows for it, those new employees can add to the DNA and identity of the company culture, making it change and improve.

Working on a company’s culture will never be finished. As the company grows and more people join, the challenges of trying to be an ideal work environment for everyone becomes greater. But instead, maybe it becomes more of a requirement to show off what that company’s culture is. To take stands and say, “This is who we are, and we’re not ashamed or afraid of it, even if some don’t like it.”

Look at how Disney took a stand in Florida to show how it supports LGBTQ+ community.

Look at Squarespace. They created a flat management structure so that junior workers could take their concerns to the top management if they felt the need.

Zappos got attention for its’ practice of helping new employees out financially if they feel that they don’t fit in to their work culture and decide to leave.

I’m not suggesting that Snaptech is at the level of those huge companies but there needed to be a starting point for those brands and their work identities. It may begin small but as a company grows it’s more difficult to change the direction the company is headed in.

Snaptech is an evolving digital marketing agency. We realize that the number one asset we have is people, our teammates and the clients we talk to every day. The tools that we use are based in digital but what matters are the humans we work alongside with. We want the company we work for to have our backs, and the person working beside you.

I think that is the common denominator from the feedback that I heard. I hope that the company you build, or that you work for, also aspires to these values.