How The Best Company Culture Will Improve Hiring

February 11, 2010

Earlier today, @OpenViewVenture tweeted a link to an article on Entrepreneur.com titled, “How to Recruit Top Talent: Having trouble attracting quality applicants? Your business’s culture may be to blame.” The article outlines four tips to creating the best company culture.

Creating a desirable company culture

1. Put your employees first

We have found that the Employees First approach produces far more passion than any motivational or recognition program.

Why? Because it proves that management understands the importance of the work being done by the employees in the value zone.

Vineet Nayar, Forbes

2. Maximize your best employees

Although you may not be able to fill every job in your business if you have a strong culture, research shows that placing your best employees in positions of great influence can improve the overall culture and keep them there for the long term.

3. Stay involved and use emotional intelligence

The first two may seem obvious, but I thought that this point was especially relevant. Particularly in start-up and expansion stage companies, hiring someone who does not match up with your company values can be a huge detriment to your entire team.

For this reason, it is essential to continue to stay close to the hiring process as your company grows, and to carefully assess each candidate’s emotional intelligence while you provide recruiting support.

4. Stay flexible

Although they forgot to number it, it seems that this was their fourth point. If you happen to hire a candidate for a position who is a great cultural fit, but ends up not being the right match for the position, see if you can move them into another role which capitalizes on their strengths and experiences (which is back to point #2). Finding someone who is the right cultural fit for your company is often the most difficult part, so try to hold on to those who do!

While these tips are applicable to all companies, I think that startups trying to come up with business growth strategies should consider the improvement and maintenance of their company culture as one of the most important.

Who’s doing it right?

Zappos

Amazon

You can usually tell when someone from outside the company visits…they’re the one’s in suits. The dress attire is casual to business casual. It can be a friendly environment and one does build relationships that isn’t all about work. Depending upon which group you are in will determine whether there are Friday happy hours and get together’s. Not unlike any other office environment.

You can expected a lot of hard work and the occasional long day. Everyone is an “owner” of the company so you learn to develop the work ethics in order to make the business thrive.

I enjoyed working there and the friends I made are invaluable. It is not a static company, you should expect big changes and quick one’s at that. Definitely an experience!

Apple

Probably the single greatest feeling working at Apple is getting to work on part of the product launch process. You plan and prep for months, then launch week you work like mad for 12-16 hours days and even pull all nighters to make sure your piece of the puzzle is ready for Apple’s big presentation. Then you gather with all the other employees in the cafe and watch it all unfold. It’s a great rush and your whole team feels it.

VP, Human Capital

<strong>Diana Martz</strong> is Vice President, Human Capital at<a href="http://www.ta.com/">TA Associates</a>. She was previously the Director of Talent at OpenView.