motivation

A strong company culture is essential in creating success for your business. 

Company culture can be defined as the shared values that a company believes in and implements on a whole; ideally on a daily level. It is reflected in the environment and behavior of all employees. It can motivate and hold everyone together to work as a team. It can also attract new members to the company, and keep the momentum going during tough times.

Think of the company culture as the driving force and mindset that is shared among the team members. It’s the shared value system that employees can refer to and it can motivate the entire company. Why is company culture so important? It often can be what makes or breaks a great workplace. Weak company culture can be a big reason why employees leave.

People sometimes need more reasons to stay at a workplace other than just company benefits, like a free gym membership. Sometimes who you work with and the relationships you have among colleagues are the main reasons why you enjoy coming to work every day, and company culture can greatly influence this. Do you feel like your company could strengthen its company culture? We gathered our five tips on how you can move your team positively forward, and even shared GoViral’s 5 Company Ethos to demonstrate how we keep our strong company culture alive.

Mission statements and ethos can be updated annually, and having your team directly input ideas can make everyone feel a part of something larger. This, of course, depends on the size of your company. It probably won’t be easy for a large business with 100+ employees to all take part in creating the company vision. Having ideas written by employees and then voting for them, or changing one together could be an alternative.

For smaller businesses, having your employees actively refresh or change the company vision once a year can be a great way to connect. If you already have a company vision, you could refresh it once in a while with your employees. Companies can continue to grow and change together along with their employees. After all, a successful company is driven by the successes of its employees. When those working for a company take part in building the ethos/vision/mission, they feel more of a part of the greater whole.

Make sure the benefits align with your company culture and add value to your employees. If your company values health and wellness, offering yoga classes once a week makes sense. Offering an option to work from home is another benefit that team members might value if your company is driven by the idea of working remotely and giving employees some freedom. The pandemic has changed remote working like never before, so this is becoming the new norm. Again, it depends on your company’s vision and values, which should be aligned with the benefits on offer.

Don’t just host team-building sessions as a routine. Make sure that your employees are having fun and creating stronger relationships with colleagues. Mixing up the events to include formal and informal events can keep things interesting. Having diverse team-building activities offers various ways for your employees to connect. 

Some ideas for team-building sessions can include joining a fitness challenge, having a casual drink after work, having an annual retreat with the team or going to an escape game together. Aligning your team-building sessions with your values offers another way to keep the momentum going helps build a company culture.

Creating space for your employees where they can be honest can provide value by finding ways to improve working conditions. When employees feel like they have been listened to, and conditions are improved, it is more likely that these employees will feel more attached to a company, and productivity goes up. 

If employees are scared to voice their needs, they might be stating them when they’re resigning. You could ask employees to write suggestions anonymously, or make sure that managers are creating an environment where needs can be openly expressed and respected.

When employees feel like they are progressing and learning something new at work, they often have a sense of moving forward as individuals and with the company. Investing in a company’s development includes investing in employee education. This can be in the form of workshops, training courses and even attending interesting events where various professional speakers talk about their expertise. Ask your employees what they want to learn to best meet their needs – if they’re growing in areas they’re enthusiastic about, your business will reap the benefits.

Belinda here! I’m the Managing Director of GoViral Digital and after 10 years of running this agency I wanted to share a personal look into our own company culture and how we developed it.

One of the main things that define our culture is our 5 GoViral Ethos. These are a kind of internal mission statement. Nothing that needs to be on our website, not a promise to our clients, but a personal and internal commitment we have to the way we work. Everyone knows it by heart, and we sometimes print them on the wall to inspire us.

You may have heard the famous sales mantra ALWAYS BE CLOSING but here at GoViral they leave the sales to me, what I want my employees to be doing is LEARNING. I started GoViral in 2011 with very little education in the area (my MBA course had no digital marketing in the curriculum in 2005) so everything I learned from courses and whitepapers and different experiences online. If an employee says to me “well I don’t know how to do xyz” as if it’s just a given, then I know they are probably not a good match for GoViral. I want my employees to be curious, to want to learn new things, to be inspired by the areas of their knowledge they haven’t developed instead of just avoiding it. And as a result – I INVEST in their education and development. 

There’s nothing that brings me more joy than overhearing one of my employees say to the other, hey have you tried this new listening app? It seems really great and it’s been helping me find more opportunities to engage, etc. I don’t want anyone working in a silo. I want them to share their learnings, their achievements, as well as their mistakes and failures. The more that we share what we learn together, the better and faster we grow in our expertise. 

Living in the Czech Republic for so many years, you’d think I’d get used to someone nodding their head no before I finish the question. But no, my American “yes I can” attitude is still alive so my team knows that if you say you can’t, I’m GOING to test that. Saying something isn’t possible before trying to find a solution is almost like giving up before understanding the possibilities. Especially when it comes to social and online marketing, things change SO QUICKLY that you can’t rely on the knowledge you had even last month. Always try first. THEN state the limitations you found. 

This was one that was added later, when I realized that my employees were sometimes so glued to what was happening on their computer that they forgot the importance of human interaction. I’d notice that they wouldn’t look up when someone else was speaking and it bothered me. So we make the promise to look up and engage because we are listening, because we care, and because human connection matters. Clients feel it too because they know we are connected with them. Also, our eye contact is with a smile, so it’s kind of hard to resist!

This is an important and deeply ingrained part of our business that clearly sets us apart from most agencies, and can be seen when you read our testimonials – we treat our clients as relationships. This means there is no blanket way to treat them. We go into each new partnership with a client like we would a love partner. We learn what are their hopes and dreams. What are the things that keep them up at night? What matters to them? For example, in the beginning, we’d have a template for reporting. Now we customize it to each client depending on what they care about and what matters to them. 

We also have really fun, and maybe “different” rituals. For example, we have the “Consequence Box” where we all put in different secret consequences, everything from having to sing us a song, rap a verse about their childhood, make us all coffee, or change your profile pic to one of our dog mascots for the day. These consequences are taken for different things like coming to a meeting late or making a mistake on a post. And we love it. We also highly recommend one song dance parties during times of stress or celebration. Here’s one that’s great for air punching, trust me it feels awesome.

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