Company culture. A phrase you hear tossed around by many organisations, each with their own definition.
- "Culture is bean bags in the office."
- "It's a mini fridge stocked with beer for Friday afternoons!"
- "It's buying everyone lunch every now and again?"
The truth is, no one's 100% sure what it is. Except for maybe Google, who earned 12 awards from Comparably in 2018 (including Best Company Culture). And it can be hard to know how to "build" a company culture when no one is quite sure what it is in the first place.
A starting point however, is that "company culture" is certainly not any one single tangible thing, but can be defined as the all-embracing values, attitudes, behaviours and standards that make up your working environment.
Here at OneUp, we're cursed with the lack of capabilities compared to a global giant like Google (who isn't?!) but that doesn't mean we can't build our own culture in other ways.
There are a few things we aim to do to keep our merry team motivated and happy, but they're all underpinned by trust. If someone abuses the trust the team puts in them, the freedoms and allowances become tighter. Thankfully no one has given us reason to exercise this yet, but the understanding is there for all to see. Communication is of paramount importance first and foremost.
So how can you build a positive company culture? We'll take a quick look at how we try to craft a positive company culture ourselves for our team here at OneUp, and hopefully leave you with some practical takeaways for your own organisation.
An excellent first day for new staff
Start as you mean to go on.
"I've been here two days and feel like it's been months."
All said after a cheeky Nandos one fine lunchtime!
We have a checklist that is diligently followed for every new starter. This includes:
- An onboarding presentation from the CEO
- Dishing out a brand new laptop & gorgeous company shirts/hoodies
- A full walk through of the OneUp product
- Outlining where they fit into the bigger picture
- Going for lunch with the team at a place of their choosing
- Defining a 30-60-90 day plan led by the new team member
- Setting aside time to arrange weekly check-ins and quarterly CEO catch ups
We often assign them a buddy for their first week (sometimes said buddy can change day-to-day) to make sure they have someone to ask questions to. It's definitely an intense first week but the passion and drive in the rest of the team is easy to see this way.
Work hours flexibility
If you've ever tried to get your hair cut on a Saturday or tried to go to the gym at 5.15pm, you'll know how much it can suck. Hours waiting to achieve what seems like a trivial task. And let's not even talk about trying to coordinate a delivery to your home whilst you're at work.
With Monday mornings being an exception (company weekly sync!), we allow our team to arrive a little late or set off a little early if they desire. Want to go to the gym at lunch to save fighting for the machines in the morning/after work? Go for it! Going back to the earlier point of trust, we have faith in each other to put in our fair share towards growing this rocket ship.
Culture days
Any founder will know how easy it is to get stuck working "in" the business rather than "on" it. We like to think we help our team to work "on" themselves rather than just "in" the business, so we have regular culture days.
The idea behind culture days is that throughout the month, anyone in the team can field a question or topic they'd like to explore. Someone picks it up and presents! For the first day we had:
- An introduction to software-as-a-service
- An overview of coding
- A quick dive into our integrations system
- A run through our sales process
Complete with a few beverages, obviously!
The result is a more engaged, inspired team that understands what everyone else gets up to in their day-to-day more intimately. Then we head off for a group social and have a blast together – the perfect ending to a fantastic day.
Next up is climbing I'm told – we'll see if the founders can hold onto their titles as number 1!
Regular values reinforcement
Our team aren't unfamiliar with random spot checks to see if they remember our values! We have 4 that we live by and they're a little different to your usual ones:
- Always be Authentic (AbA)
- Dive into Discomfort (DiD)
- Go for Gold (G4G)
- Operate with Optimism (OwO)
Whether it's being yourself, putting yourself out of your comfort zone, aspiring to be your best self, or coming to work with a smile, these 4 values reinforce what it means to work at OneUp. We can't forget them, so discussing them regularly helps keep everyone aligned to what we're all about.
Full team involvement
Recently we had a product workshop – 2 hours discussing the future plans for our product and what we wanted to see. Everyone was invited.
Using the Disney ideation methodology, we start big. Then we narrow it down as we progress through the methodology with everyone able to contribute their ideas at each stage.
The variety of views and opinions from different disciplines was very interesting to see, and it stops us from becoming tunnel-visioned in our quest to continuously evolve and enhance our sales management platform.
We believe that when you have a team this small, there's no excuse to put up barriers between departments. Devs get involved in marketing ideation, Sales contribute to product, Customer Success weighs in on sales collateral, and so on.
"It's about the journey as much as the destination"
Ultimately, we want people to enjoy their time at OneUp, and no doubt, you want the same for your team and your organisation. We all have the "North Star" in our mind, but it's important to remember that life's too short to not enjoy the journey towards it.
Top Tips to Create Your Own Positive Company Culture
- Establish trust with your employees.
- Analyse your current culture. Have open discussions with your employees about what is good and what needs to be better.
- Define Your Ideal Culture. What values are important to you and your employees?
- Set clear expectations and goals.
- Measure goals and give frequent feedback. (We have a platform that can help with that if you didn't know!).
- Recognise and reward good work.
- Develop your employees. Invest in your employees' professional development, and they'll stay invested in you.
- Focus on employee engagement. A happy team is a productive team.
We have a long way to go before we can claim to be anything like Google, but our culture is one of friendship, trust and ambition. And we wouldn't have it any other way.
OneUp Sales - building high performance sales teams by increasing productivity, retaining talent, and empowering management across your organisation.
