6 basic steps to build a sustainable corporate culture

Corporate culture is an intangible asset that adds a lot of value to employee engagement. In today’s volatile market, a company that lacks culture, vision, core values, and long-term development strategies will fail.

It is true that the age of company culture can outlive the life of the business leader. We see many businesses that have been around for over a century, constantly evolving and bringing positive values to society. This exemplifies a company culture that was firmly established and taken seriously from the beginning.

However, creating a corporate culture necessitates a number of factors as well as a lengthy process. BEMO will help you see the elements that make up the corporate culture and the steps to building a basic corporate culture in this article.

1. Elements of corporate culture

You should embrace the following core elements when developing a sustainable corporate culture:

• Vision:

The leader’s vision is the orientation and business development goals that he or she establishes before starting the business and is determined to implement. Vision is regarded as a guiding principle for all business activities, orienting employees to follow, promoting good values, and constantly evolving.

The vision must be appropriate and feasible for each business’s current situation.

• Core values:

This is the nature of the industry. To pursue the business’s vision, the company must have core values that are unique and distinct, so that customers and employees can recognize them. This is also the standard measure for all activities centered on the company’s established goals.

• People:

The human factor is always the most important and necessary because who will share the strategies and core values, and who will implement them to best promote those goals if there are no human resources? Culture, like company culture, does not exist in the absence of humanity.

A strong team fosters a long-term company culture because its values align with the organization’s overall goals. Hiring the right people has numerous advantages, including cost savings for businesses, candidates who fit the company culture, and increased employee loyalty and dedication. Furthermore, new employees will add unprecedented new value to the corporate culture.

• Regulations/rules of the enterprise:

The general policies and regulations are thought to be representative of the company’s culture, and all members of the organization must adhere to the shared values.

When the entire enterprise adheres to the common regulations, it demonstrates that the motto of effective management, creating a consistent working environment, and mutual understanding has been met.

• Cultural diversity:

Human resources come from different regions, which makes a difference for the company culture. They will have to exchange and learn regional values to understand each other better, which creates a culture of learning and supporting each other. This is also a factor that businesses should consider to form the most appropriate company culture.

• Technology: 

When a company goes digital, it creates a more professional, uniform, and modern working environment. This is also a factor that contributes to the company culture, allowing work to run smoothly and attracting many talents to devote their talents.

The factors listed above have a significant impact on company culture and contribute to the development of a long-term management system. But how do you get started in the right direction when it comes to creating a corporate culture? Continue reading further down.

2. How to build a sustainable corporate culture for small and medium businesses  

Businesses should consider the following six steps when developing a corporate culture:

Step 1: Check the current organization assessment

First, businesses must assess what quality issues the current culture is experiencing. This is difficult because culture is an intangible value that can only be observed or surveyed by businesses. As a result, if your company exhibits any of the following symptoms, it is time to change the culture immediately:

• When continuously recruiting for vacancies:

This is a sign that the company culture is in trouble, because employees feel inadequate, or poor management affects employee psychology.

• Inadequate management:

This is said to be a factor that needs to be improved when building a company’s corporate culture, because it will create bad habits for employees such as being late to work and lacking discipline.

• Inadequate internal communication: 

Employees lack cohesion, departments do not get along, and there is no interaction, all of which indicate that the company culture needs to be changed. Employees rarely communicate to understand each other, which easily leads to conflicts when exchanging ideas.

• Lack of staff opinions: 

Demonstrates that businesses do not provide opportunities for employees to open, comment, and share in order to improve policies and working processes. This is a dull and oppressive work environment.

There are numerous other objective factors that businesses must consider before developing corporate culture.

Step 2: Unique ideas for corporate culture

Once the toxic factors affecting the general culture have been identified, the business should define the change criteria. Therefore, businesses need to have an idea of ​​the criteria for internal culture and priority rates, such as:

• Level of interest in the company: 60%
• Business goal: 10%
• Training: 6%
• Comfort: 3%
• Efficiency: 90%

With such prioritization, businesses will be able to build important cultural elements first and improve core values faster.

Step 3: Choose core values

Instead of giving away a few easy words, if you want to have a sustainable, consistent company culture, the business must have core values. As a result, businesses should ask the following questions to determine their own worth:

• What are the mission, vision, and goals of the organization?
• What characteristics will the company be known for?
• Do the business goals align with the collective goals of the employees?
• What is the company’s distinct culture? Professional working environment, recognized employee achievement, excellent employee training, best customer service, and so on.
• What is the company’s distinct culture? Professional working environment, recognized employee achievement, excellent employee training, best customer service, and so on.

You can easily hire or fire employees based on these core values. This assists the company in hiring the right people who understand the company culture. Employees outside of the Marketing or Customer Relations departments can then become “brand ambassadors.” Employees can serve as goodwill ambassadors both inside and outside of the company.

Step 4: A clear culture-building plan

Building a culture and a transformation plan is critical because otherwise, the idea will remain on paper forever. As a result, at this stage, leaders must take the initiative, provide a vision, inspire employees to believe in corporate values, and collaborate to build corporate culture.

The success or failure of company culture is heavily dependent on the level of leadership because they are the locomotive that drives employees to achieve goals. Nothing persuades employees more than practical actions that produce specific results. Remember that having the right culture gives you everything, including a strong brand.

Step 5: Actual implementation

When everything is in place, it is time for businesses to implement the strategy for creating a culture that includes the following elements:

• Project team

Which department will participate and implement the first important factor? Businesses can then compute the time and workload for participating resources.

• Communicating company culture

This helps employees understand the importance of changing the current culture; it is the leader’s responsibility to communicate the company’s cultural message that will support employees’ development while also motivating them to break through.

• Change the interior design to create open space

This creates a new working environment, inspires employees to work with innovation, and demonstrates that the business is truly changing. Staff will also be changing.

• Recruiting new talent

Creating a new culture necessitates resources, and if possible, the company should hire more leaders. They will be able to bring new ideas from outside, which, when combined with veteran employees, will create greater value.

• Create an appropriate reward system

Redesigning the new reward model will allow employees to work hard to adapt to the new culture. Employees will self-regulate their behavior to achieve new benefits when they are established with accompanying criteria. This is a very useful tool for assisting employees in quickly assimilating into the company culture.

Step 6: Assess the outcomes

After you’ve implemented the new company culture in your organization, track the results over time. Businesses can specifically measure in the following ways:

• Conduct an employee satisfaction survey to determine what isn’t working in the process of changing company culture. The specialized department can use email surveys to collect information more easily, allowing it to be tailored to the group.
• Additionally, businesses can use the employee turnover index (ETR), the employee engagement index (eNPS), and the employee satisfaction index (ESI). With these three indicators, leaders can identify areas of the company culture that are experiencing bottlenecks, allowing them to make timely adjustments.

As a result, the article has provided an overview of the factors influencing corporate culture, as well as six basic steps to help build a corporate culture in the right direction. We hope that BEMO has assisted businesses in resolving difficult management issues and gaining a better understanding of company culture.