Internal Communications: 3 tips to boost your start-up’s culture
Time to read: 2 minutes
Emma Tucker, our internal communications consultant, provides her top three tips for creating a company culture that is right for you.
All companies have a culture regardless of how old or new they are or the condition of their internal communications. Your culture captures the essence of who you are and how you do things. It can attract people to join you and keep them working effectively and loyally.
For start-ups, culture and vision can be used to convince prospective hires and intentionally defining and promoting both will keep you honest as you grow.
Here are three ways to get intentional with your culture.
1. Define it.
Get your people in a room and discuss what makes the company special. Write it down. Get specific on the words you choose, and don’t be afraid to disagree; it’s in the debate that you’ll uncover areas of tension and uniqueness. Think about the stories you tell about your company – what do they say about you?
Define the values and behaviours you want to live by. For example, you might choose “Impact” as a value and explain the accompanying behaviours as “You accomplish important work that positively impacts our clients”, “You consider the impact of your work on the people around you”, and “You leave a good impression because you take action and deliver on your promises.”
Involve employees in the process by letting them discuss the values and prioritise relevant and helpful behaviours for their work. Then, test it with your clients and external stakeholders. Honest feedback will be your friend.
Keep refining the descriptions until they feel right and truly reflect your thoughts. Aim to define four or five company values. Teams can then decide on the relevant behaviours (aim for three behaviours per value).
2. Embed it.
Weave your culture into every interaction with your employees and clients. It should:
- Be part of hiring, developing, and assessing your people.
- Become integral to how you innovate and grow your business offering.
- Be part and parcel of how you approach client meetings and deliver results.
- Be reflected in your communications, tone, and methods.
- Be instantly recognisable in everything from financial updates to processes and procedures.
- Be projected in team meetings and one-to-one conversations.
Ultimately, your culture should dictate how you measure your performance and success.
3. Evolve it.
Your culture is organic and will evolve whether you intentionally maintain it or not. Revisit the definitions. A set of values and behaviours appropriate for year one might need another look by year five. Check that you haven’t missed an important touchpoint as you’ve grown.
Smart leaders keep their finger on the pulse. Return to your employees and clients, listen to their stories, observe their behaviours, and act on their feedback. This is true internal communications in action. The speed and scale of your growth will dictate the frequency of these checkpoints, but every six months is a sensible guide.
This process is worth the effort because getting intentional about your culture will drive better business outcomes. McKinsey’s Organisational Health Index shows that organisations with top-quartile cultures post a 60% higher shareholder return than median companies and 200% higher than those in the bottom quartile.
People who want to add to your culture will perform better, more easily adapt to change, and help you attract more talent. They will be your champions.
Putting in the effort to define, embed, and evolve your culture during the early years of your start-up will save you a lot of time, money, and energy in the long run.
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Corporate culture: If you’re going to improve it, talk about it
Time to read: 4 minutes
Anthony McNamara, content creator at The Comms Crowd, looks at why companies need to talk about their corporate culture and values. And why it should be part of every communications plan.
Businesses must regularly monitor and assess seated KPIs to perform optimally. Typically, these KPIs surround functions such as sales, technology infrastructure, PR and marketing, and client relationships.
Critical though these metrics are, they are the supporting walls of the corporate edifice. Without a solid foundation, they are liable to collapse.
That foundation is the corporate culture. Many businesses neglect corporate culture in favour of shorter-term pursuits, yet developing a strong, inclusive, and supportive culture is the key to unlocking maximum potential.
However, simply embedding a strong culture is not enough if you want to reap its rewards; you have to talk about it.
In this blog, we look at the benefits of a great corporate culture. How a selection of Comms Crowd clients developed theirs, and how we’ve helped spread news of their successes to the masses.
The ‘Great Resignation’ has brought corporate culture to the fore
Developing a robust corporate culture was always important, but the Covid-19 pandemic made it critical in the years that followed.
In what became known as the ‘Great Resignation’, employees voluntarily quit their jobs in unprecedented numbers. Between July and September 2021 alone, over 400,000 UK workers left their jobs.
Employees frequently cited a hostile working environment as a reason for leaving. Indeed, such was the prevalence of the phenomenon that ‘toxic workplaces’ became a trending topic nationwide.
The disruption of the Covid years prompted fresh expectations among the workforce regarding what behaviours they are prepared to tolerate. A poor or neglected corporate culture may have been grudgingly endured before the virus escaped ground zero. Times have changed since.
Quorsus, a strategic financial services consultancy and former Comms Crowd client, led discussions on the dangers of toxic company cultures and how to avoid them. Indeed, the company itself was established on a vow that its corporate culture would be positively imbued and reinforced by core values.
Consultancies must prioritise embedding a robust culture and strong values because their people are their product. Quorsus will tell you that it has gone some way to explaining the extraordinary success.
We amplified Quorsus’ approach and message, ensuring its impact was felt across its sector and beyond.
A robust corporate culture breeds productivity
Ask any education professional, and they’ll confirm that praise is essential for a child’s development. The chemical reaction experienced from being told they’ve done a great job immediately boosts a child’s sense of self-worth. It encourages them to continue working hard so they might experience it again.
In other words, it has the power to supercharge their productivity.
Yet, something changes when we reach adulthood and enter the world of work. It’s as though we forget these reward centres exist and how powerful they are. Consequently, praise is often replaced by criticism and our inner child – still so easily motivated by encouraging words – is swallowed by a vortex of ruthless expectation.
Ignoring this reality is short-sighted, to say the least. A national Workplace Culture Survey of US employees found that 63% of respondents claim that workplace culture directly impacts their organisation’s success.
Abundant opportunities drive productivity. When former client and friend of The Crowd dxw, a leading employee-owned digital agency, launched its Returners’ Programme, it broke new ground.
dxw partnered with The Comms Crowd to share and disseminate its story with potential stakeholders. The coverage was such that dxw has become recognised as an expert provider of digital public services and opportunities to those who may feel they have passed them by.
Together, we ensured the world knew of dxw’s leadership position in creating a positive, inclusive culture. In fact, it became one of the first companies to introduce gender pronouns into email signatures.
dxw’s small size notwithstanding, the firm won an array of company culture awards, helping to attract exceptional like-minded talent. Essential for any fast-growing technology enterprise.
Positive cultures promote development
‘The Great Resignation’ jolted many organisations into action. Not wanting to lose their top talent, these firms put a renewed focus on facilitating professional development. They recognised that avoiding high employee turnover requires more than just an amenable working environment.
Before any recruitment drive, senior leaders review factors such as pay scales, perks, and benefits. However attractive they can make each perk if the organisation is renowned as a place where careers stagnate, the drive is doomed to fail.
As such, building a positive culture requires embedding opportunities and routes to success at all levels of the business. The best cultures underpin this by committing to personal development as much as professional development. Achievements are properly rewarded, and a healthy work/life balance is respected.
Another former client, JDX Consulting, since acquired by Delta Capita, attributed its sustained global success to a carefully developed culture. It promoted inclusivity, coaching, and empowerment, allowing the firm to attract diverse, high-quality talent from all walks of life.
By entrusting The Comms Crowd with articulating and sharing its methodologies, JDX became the corporate culture benchmark within its sector before being acquired by Delta Capita.
We then worked with JDX to promote its Festival of Learning, a professional development programme set up by the firm’s HR division. The initiative gives employees the space and tools to grow professionally at their own pace and take control of their career progress.
Showcase your corporate culture with The Comms Crowd
Our clients love us because we’re adept at getting their messages and successes into the public domain and the publications their stakeholders engage with.
It deserves to be celebrated if you have invested time and money into developing a corporate culture that breeds energy, achievement, opportunity, and happiness.
Moreover, potential talent, partners, investors, and clients want to know what you’ve done and are doing. Speak to The Comms Crowd today; our internal comms consultant, PRs, and writers can ensure they will.
