Fortunately, you can build a killer culture in your company on little more than a beer budget, lowering your turnover rate, solidifying your brand and future proofing your employee acquisition efforts. Here's how!
Fortunately, you can build amazing culture within your company on little more than a beer budget, lowering your turnover rate, solidifying your brand and future proofing your employee acquisition efforts.
BYOC
A great deal of your company culture is contingent upon the employees you have on hand at that moment. Assuming that you have properly vetted your employees during the hiring process, you have hired a synergistic team with a baseline of common values. BYOC (Bring Your Own Culture) means freedom for these employees – they have the ability to add their own special touch to the basic rule set presented to them by management. If you give your employees the freedom to explore within a set of guidelines, you may be pleasantly surprised at what they create. More importantly, just like BYOB... BYOC saves the host money!
Basing Culture Around Synergy
Companies that have to spend a great deal of money creating culture have unknowingly created a culture around money. Although every business needs to earn a profit, more money comes through higher efficiency. Every company should look into new technologies and psychological techniques that improve efficiency. Most of these new techniques are quite separated from traditional office structure and will give your company a naturally flowing culture. For instance, having beanbag chairs in the company meeting room may not look as professional as $500 leather seats, but it has been proven to create higher productivity during group meetings. Many of these ideas will come directly from your employees, so keep your ears open to their suggestions!
Investing in Cultural Amenities
You may not realize the immediate benefit of putting an espresso machine in your office. After all, this is an upfront cost that you could avoid by simply letting your employees take coffee breaks to the nearest convenience coffee shop. However, you end up saving money and creating a better company culture through this investment in a few ways. First of all, your employees will spend more time in the office getting coffee rather than from the neighborhood coffee bar. This creates a higher synergy and more comfort within the office, leading to higher efficiency. Secondly, that one-time cost of the espresso machine keeps you from having to spend money on gift cards for every employee during the holidays to continue buying coffee off-site.
Have Fun
It costs nothing to turn up the Sonos throughout the day and have everyone choose their favorite playlist throughout the day. Head out for an afternoon walk outside to give an office-wide eyeball break and get everybody feeling rejuvenated. There is very little cost to sharing talents with others in the office. Do not base your culture around money, and you will come up with endless ways to create a narrative around the people you work with.
More tips to achieving healthy company culture through office spaces and team building here!
