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Cydcor has done it again! This year marks the 9th time Cydcor has been named to LA Business Journal’s Best Places to Work list. The list, compiled by the Best Companies Group, an independent research firm, is created based on employee responses to a survey that takes into account employee satisfaction and engagement across a broad spectrum of categories including Leadership and Planning, Corporate Culture and Communications, Training, Development and Resources, Pay and Benefits, and more. Read more about Cydcor’s ninth Best Places to Work win.
Cydcor is a company that continues to evolve, maintaining focus on helping team members develop, grow, and succeed. Cydcor offers a wide variety of programs, events, processes, and benefits to enrich team members’ professional lives and provide them with the resources they need to maintain their personal, mental, and financial health as well.
But the reasons Cydcor deserves to be named among the Best Places to Work go far beyond benefits. Cydcor has a rich corporate culture that begins with a strong set of company values, including The Behavior We Value, that permeates throughout the business, touching every aspect of its operations from hiring and onboarding, to robust training and development resources, to team and cultural events, to ongoing corporate philanthropy projects. Check out even more of the reasons Cydcor’s “People Helping People” philosophy is the embodiment of a great place to work.
Over the years, Cydcor has demonstrated continued commitment to investing in its team members, because people are the heart and soul of the business and its is their hard work, passion, and drive that enable Cydcor to succeed. But the best testament to why Cydcor deserves to be on the Best Places to Work list comes from team members themselves. See team members share, in their own words, how working at Cydcor has enriched their own personal and professional lives.
Companies put a great deal of time and energy into plan exciting and rich social events, community service activities, and employee experiences, but companies rarely include strong company culture and how it’s created among their achievements. Rather than overlook cultural and community events, companies should recognize and laud these rituals as major wins. Social activities, team building, and philanthropic initiatives unite teams, reinforce values, and improve employee morale. They help team members feel connected and remind them that they are so much more than cogs in a revenue-making machine. After all, employees spend more time with their work families than their real families, and it’s natural to want that time to be meaningful.
Companies with a robust company culture are linked to a lower turnover rate, according to a Columbia University study, which can impact morale and, more importantly, productivity. Happy employees devote more of themselves to their jobs, and strong business values help breed passion for the company and work, which supports employee longevity.
Business values can shape the way employees view their work and the objectives they are expected to achieve. When companies promote collaboration, creativity, and encourage employees to freely share their ideas, it often pays off in the form of innovative thinking that can help power more rapid organizational growth.
Believe it or not, company culture can have a direct impact on the bottom line. According to research by the University of California, happy employees have been found to be more productive. According to the study, these employees were 31% more productive and delivered 37% higher sales. Business values can improve employee engagement, which not only leads to greater performance, but also a better quality final product.
As companies seek out up-and-coming talent, it is to their benefit to consider the values of those they hope to recruit. Millennials choose companies the same way they choose products: based on beliefs. They want to work for companies that have strong business values and whose cultural values connect with their own.
While all companies want to be recognized for the results they produce, culture can often be the factor that helps companies standout in a crowded marketplace. Consumers are often most loyal to brands that appeal to their own sense of values, and clients like to hire companies that will reflect well on them. Companies that adopt sustainable manufacturing practices, for instance, can incorporate responsible manufacturing into their brand identity to edge out the competition with environmentally conscious customers and clients.
Strong business values can help to reduce internal politics, support greater alignment with company goals, and enable a clear understanding of processes and approaches. Employees at companies with a strong company culture quickly understand “the way we do things here” and reduce wasted effort. Companies like Cydcor, where open and candid communication is ingrained in the business's values, can benefit from reduced bureaucracy and empower their team members to resolve conflicts through direct and constructive conversation.
At Cydcor, we value our company culture as a critical part of what drives our organization. We recently created this video looking back at a year of cultural events that included a company-wide day in the field, department volunteer days at local charities community service events, participation in corporate games and sports competitions, a community health fair, a wine tasting evening, and celebrations of diverse holidays from Halloween to Diwali. Cydcor believes that engaging our team members in rich cultural experiences and creating a shared set of company values has been one of our many secrets to success.
Company culture is so much more than holiday parties and picnics. It is the route through which team members find their place in an organization. Culture helps employees feel that they are part of a company, not just working for one. It gives their work purpose, connects them with their teams, and helps them feel invested in something much larger and more important than the daily grind. By investing in and nurturing business values, organizations can create an environment that helps employees perform at their best.
We are a people helping people business. In the fast-paced world of sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship, we know that we succeed when our people do. They are the future of our business, and that’s why every aspect of our workplace culture is designed to help people succeed and achieve their goals. We achieve this by offering unique opportunities such as professional development trainings and conferences, giving back to local and global communities, and much more. Are you ready to write your own story? Learn more about our employee culture and why Cydcor is the right fit for you!
We know that growing your career takes learning new skills, overcoming obstacles, and taking challenges head on. That’s why Cydcor has an open-door policy, so our team members have face-to-face access to leaders across the company who are invested in helping them succeed. Our people-focused culture encourages open communication and collaboration; not only to share ideas and perspectives about business goals, but also to support each other. Cydcor is not a bureaucracy; our team members collaborate—across multiple levels—to solve business challenges and inspire each other to succeed because everyone has an important role to play.
In the spirit of people helping people, our culture includes a dedication to giving back. Globally, Cydcor volunteers time and talent, and raises funds for Operation Smile, which provides children in developing nations free, life-changing cleft lip and palate surgeries. Locally, Cydcor provides team members with paid volunteer hours and partners with local organizations to improve the communities in which we work and live. We do this with a sense of social responsibility, because we value making positive impacts that are bigger than ourselves. Just as our success as a company is strengthened by the success of our people, we as a community grow stronger when members of the community feel supported and free to thrive.
With over 25 years of sales and customer acquisition experience, we understand the effort it takes to see goals through because everyone, from entry-level team members to senior leadership, has a gusto for getting results. Cydcor fosters a workplace culture where dedication and hard work are appreciated and rewarded, and we celebrate team members who aggressively pursue where they’ll be tomorrow by impacting what they do today. At Cydcor, we don’t give up, and we don’t make excuses. We see it through to the goal line, because we stand by our commitments.
Our workplace culture grows unstoppable leaders, because at Cydcor, we build on team members strengths and provide them with the training and support they need to overcome weaknesses. We believe in maintaining a student mentality at all times and that learning should be an ongoing process for everyone from the entry level to the C-suite.
We include integrity in our workplace culture because it’s a word we live by. Integrity means knowing what is right and having the guts to do it. At Cydcor, we do what is right, not what is easy, and when we say we are going to do something, we do it well. Results matter, but how those results were attained matters just as much.
Cydcor aggressively seeks to improve today by creating new opportunities for a better tomorrow. We know the best solutions to business problems are found with the team members who tackle them, and we’re not afraid to challenge our assumptions and look for new approaches. So we work together to embrace obstacles and relentlessly push through them to bring innovative solutions to life for our teams and clients.
Cydcor thrives because of the high value we place on our team members. Cydcor culture is one that provides an opportunity to believe in each other as well as our shared goals. It is a place where we believe that hard work, collaboration, and dedication can produce remarkable results. Team members grow professionally, give back to the community, and flex their people skills, while knowing that they belong to an organization that is committed to their personal success as well as that of the company. For more information, contact us today.
Management and leadership are two sides of the same coin, and both are necessary for a business to succeed. Learning the difference between management and leadership is important for developing effective management skills.
Great leadership is about inspiring enthusiasm and drive, while great management is about building highly efficient teams that produce impressive results. Managers are experts at getting things done and meeting targets and deadlines; leaders know how to evolve people and organizations and help them meet their potential. Each is a unique discipline that helps teams meet their short- and long-term goals, while also fostering commitment to a shared vision and outside the box thinking.
Management skills are concerned with assigning tasks, committing to deadlines, and creating systems, while leadership is focused on defining a purpose and uniting individuals behind big ideas. Managers ensure teams meet their deadlines and deliver what’s expected of them, while leaders focus on the future and how teams might prepare for challenges on the horizon. Management is about limiting risk, while leadership encourages bold action. Leadership is primarily about engagement, while management has more to do with execution. Management focuses on performance, while leadership focuses on development. Managers develop processes and create smooth operations, while leaders build relationships, encourage communication, and build trust. The most successful businesses are built with an ideal balance of management skills and leadership skills.
Scenario 1: Suzy Business Owner has promised a new client 2,000 flyers by the end of the month, but she recently lost two employees, and she knows it’s going to be a stretch. She creates a workflow document that helps remaining team members understand when they must complete their portion of the project, and she meets with each team member one-on-one to train them on the new system. By following the workflow correctly, the team is able to meet their deadline.
Is this an example of management or leadership?
Answer: Management
Suzy is faced with a short-term business challenge, and by managing her overstretched team correctly, she’s able to help them successfully achieve their goal.
On the other hand…
Suzy should be careful. Her team is being pushed beyond its limits. To continue her team’s successful streak, Suzy must also lead. She has to remind team members that accepting these kinds of challenges can help them transform the organization, leading to a more successful future for everyone involved.
Scenario 2:
Jim Entrepreneur is hoping to push his company to become the leader in its industry within the next five years. He knows it’s possible if everyone gets on board. He calls a team meeting where he presents his long-term vision and asks team members to imagine what it will feel like to someday be the best of the best. He hands out paper and crayons and asks everyone to draw a picture of one thing the company can start doing differently to help towards its goals. The team eagerly participates and many turn in more than one idea.
Is this an example of management or leadership?
Answer: Leadership
While Jim’s meeting may not produce any tangible results immediately, it serves to unite the team and get everyone excited about the company’s potential. His brainstorm encourages creativity, and it reminds each team member that his or her ideas matter. The meeting also helps inspire people to focus on the big picture rather than just short-term results.
On the other hand…
Jim has a talent for getting his team fired up, but this effect could fade if his team members start to notice that he’s all talk and no action. Jim will need to use his management skills to prove that he can translate ideas into tangible business systems.
Scenario 3:
Eric the Executive grows concerned when the company does not hit its goals for the quarter. He schedules one-on-one meetings with each member of his team to investigate the problem. One team member, who has struggled to meet his deadlines, says he’s been having trouble with the company’s current software, and he has been leaving work 10 minutes early every day to take a training class on another software he was hoping to pitch as a replacement. Eric tells the team member he’s sorry to hear the current software is challenging, but he asks the employee to consider dropping the class to allow him the extra time needed to finish his daily tasks. The employee agrees to focus on his work.
Is this an example of management or leadership?
Answer: Management
Eric is doing a great job using his management skills to monitor the bottom line and ensure his company is meeting its quarterly goals. He understands that every team member must be contributing 100 percent of what is expected of them if the company hopes to produce the results it has promised.
On the other hand…
While Eric has solved the problem in the short term, he may be missing longer term opportunities to help the company operate more efficiently. If he had found a way to help the team member stay in the class, Eric would have provided the employee with a chance to develop himself while also exploring a new software solution which might improve company operations far into the future.
Scenario 4:
Brenda the Boss has discovered that her team’s projects have consistently come in over budget, and the executive team has suggested that if Brenda can’t curb spending, they may have to reduce her department’s budget for next quarter. Brenda can think of a few ways she could reduce spending, but instead of implementing those ideas automatically, she decides to throw the problem to her team, asking them to brainstorm some solutions to cut costs.
Is this an example of management or leadership?
Answer: Leadership
By empowering her team to find solutions, Brenda encourages them to think outside the box and demonstrates confidence in their abilities to problem solve. She also shows that her priority is not implementing her ideas, but rather, finding the solutions that are best for the team.
On the other hand…
Brenda will still need to make sure the solutions her team comes up with will deliver as promised. If they cannot reach their cost cutting goals, the whole team will suffer under a slashed budget, so Brenda may have to nix more creative ideas if they don’t seem likely to reach the goal.
Every business needs both great management and bold leadership in order to achieve its goals. Vision without action is ineffectual, and efficiency without a purpose is a recipe for maintaining the status quo. Managers help businesses function like well-oiled machines, while leaders help organizations evolve and take giant leaps forward. Innovative companies can count on their managers to work out the kinks, lower costs, and increase volume, while well-managed companies benefit from the creativity, passion, and unity leaders inspire. Whether it’s achieved by one executive or a team of one hundred, the most successful companies will be those who recognize the difference between management and leadership see the two as complementary and inseparable parts of any thriving business.
Corporate culture comprises some of the hardest to define aspects of your business: vision, values, philosophies, leadership, language, norms, beliefs, habits, and more. Because defining corporate culture is so challenging, though, many business owners overlook it altogether. Corporate culture exists, however, whether a company’s leadership actively takes a part in creating it or not. Business leaders who do not help shape their organization’s corporate culture run the risk of letting their businesses lose control of such an important facet.
Creating a vibrant, easy-to-understand corporate culture can help organizations attract and keep top talent. It is critical to employee engagement and retention, and it can have an impact their happiness and satisfaction in the workplace. Creating a thriving corporate culture can also affect performance by instilling values relating to work ethic or by the way it shapes management styles. Culture can also influence the way your company is viewed by its competitors and industry.
It’s All About Authenticity: Defining corporate culture is valuable, but the definition must fit your unique company and its values. Don’t base your idea of culture on what competitors are doing, and don’t try to force your company culture to fit within a narrow definition based solely on what you’d like the company to be. Instead, take an honest assessment of your existing corporate culture, and define specific adjustments you’d like to make over time.
Corporate culture is something that permeates every aspect of a business, and changing it means changing employees’ feelings about the business, their understanding of what is expected of them, and a shared sense of the things that matter most to the business. Simply slapping a new label on your corporate culture won’t do much to change those deeply ingrained ideas. Shifting the perception of what your business stands for will take plenty of time, planning, cooperation, communication, and demonstrating that the company’s spoken values are much more than mere words.
Clarify Purpose: Start simply by defining your organization’s purpose. Then, ensure all employees and stakeholders understand that purpose, have bought into it, and are united toward fulfilling it. A clear definition of your corporate culture is pertinent to how effective it is.
Make Culture Part of Your Communications: Build a shared cultural vocabulary by reinforcing company purpose, vision, and values in all weekly and daily communications. Creating corporate culture means keeping it in mind when you set goals, announce achievements, plan events, and celebrate successes. Take advantage of company meetings as opportunities to reiterate core philosophies and unite the team. Weave culture into the visual design and layout of your workspace, as well. Prove your company’s stated values are more than just lip-service. For example, make sure your “green” business offers employees access to plenty of recycling bins, and avoid filling your business that touts “creativity and outside-the-box thinking,” with small cubicles, which literally box employees in.
Lead by Example: Call on your executive team to help define corporate culture. Other members of the organization will look to what the executive team does, not just to what they say, to determine their cultural reality. Setting the right example is critical when it comes to culture, so hold meetings to ensure your highest-ranking leaders are on board and fully committed to doing their parts.
Hire with Culture in Mind: Maintaining a specific corporate culture requires hiring not just quality people, but the right people. Communicate your corporate culture clearly during the interview process, just as you would other company goals, and make sure it fits with prospective employees’ own values and work style.
Grow Your Culture as You Grow Your Organization: When companies grow, culture becomes vulnerable because new employees bring with them new ideas, ingrained values, and past experiences. Set clear guidelines and provide reminders of cultural priorities to help maintain control of company culture during growth periods.
Get Everyone on Board: Make team members accountable for living up to the company’s standards and representing its values. Accepting shared responsibility for creating company culture gives employees a sense of ownership and purpose. Set clear expectations for employee behavior, and encourage managers to label and confront actions that violate company values. Make culture part of performance reviews , and address culture when measuring company progress as well.
Shape the Culture Around Your People, Not the Other Way Around: As company priorities and processes naturally evolve over time, the way you define your corporate culture may no longer fit. If your company’s value statements focus on the importance of in-person, face-to-face meetings, but 80% of your new employees now telecommute, it may be time to rethink whether those values still make sense. Don't try to force your people conform to a cultural definition that is no longer relevant. Instead, adjust your concept of corporate culture to fit your people and what’s important to them.
Corporate cultures are born with companies. They have lives of their own that go on whether business leaders intervene to help shape them or not. Defining and guiding corporate culture is about much more than words. It requires that companies and their leadership commit to a set of values and agree to a clear set of actions to weave those values throughout all of the core business functions. A thriving corporate culture is like a company’s soul: it is present in the way it does business, what it says about itself, who it hires, who it promotes, what it delivers to clients, and so much more. Business owners who understand the importance of corporate culture, can build happier, more engaged, better performing, and united work forces driven by people who understand their shared purpose.
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Here is Cydcor's review of Thriving in 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the New World of Work by Susan Helgesen.
About Thriving in 24/7: Thriving in 24/7 takes a look into the “new” work rules in today’s 24/7 environments. Cheap and portable networked technologies have made communication in the professional landscape simple and fast, but at the cost of being flooded with options that can interrupt our own personal lives. Thriving in 24/7 looks to show another way of setting forth new strategies for working and living appropriate for post-industrial lives.
Why Cydcor recommends this book to future leaders: It’s incredibly easy to be on-call 24/7 with cell phones, tablets and laptops coupled with free wi-fi in nearly any public area. This book looks to help one to be successful while still establishing personal boundaries by setting concrete ways of working. The book emphasizes the importance of locating your inner voice and taking inventory on a regular basis.
Thriving in 24/7 demonstrates ways to create your own work by articulating your values and integrating your passions. It also demonstrates how to incorporate renewal into each day by identifying the true sources of your joy, practicing mindfulness, and cultivating the elements of Slow.
Want to learn more about our company? Check out Cydcor on CrunchBase for additional information.
Our favorite part: The author’s first strategy is to start at the core. If someone wants to create work that suits their individual needs and talents, they must be aware of the forces at work in the world. She also explains that we must also develop a thorough knowledge of ourselves and an understanding of what we have to offer.
“We have to know our priorities, values, temperament, character and ambitions. We have to understand where our blocks life, what emotional legacies might be holding us back or pushing us forward. We have to understand what we fear, what makes us feel stuck or overwhelmed.”
Helgesen also states that starting at the core is crucial in an area of new technologies, as we have so many choices to make every day. By narrowing in on ourselves, we can place an emphasis on the niche that gives us more opportunities to create work that reflects our individual interests.
Description of this book: Delivering Happiness by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh is the story of how this young man created a new kind of company. Hsieh wanted to build a business that valued customers, employees, and investors equally. The CEO puts a strong focus on positive company culture, operating under the theory that a good corporate culture will let everything else fall into place naturally. A company of happy employees stay in the job longer, work harder and provide better customer service. Company success has to come from being unique and creating something people will get excited about. A focus on happiness not only attracted better talent, but gave Zappos a unique edge.
Cydcor recommends this book to leaders because: Hsieh has been able to build multiple companies in his career and has learned how to create a team of people that will work hard for his vision. Zappos now does over a billion dollars in sales annually. That is no small feat considering the competitiveness of online retailing. Future leaders should have a lot to learn about this company and take some ideas that challenge the norm of business leadership. Building a positive company culture can be a challenge and this book will lay it out for leaders.
Our favorite part: Zappos actually pays employees to quit. By giving them $2,000 to leave Zappos is they are unhappy, the company is less likely to retain team members who may be a negative influence on the work environment. That concept and other ideas.
Cydcor is a leading sales company that specializes in omni-channel relationships with customers. For more information on Cydcor, follow our Cydcor Community blog.
I have been with Cydcor for seventeen years. In 2010, we launched our partnership with Operation Smile. The work we do to raise money for this cause has added an extra level of meaning to the work we do at Cydcor and our community. We were already giving employees volunteer hours and donated to charities, but we especially appreciate our special relationship with Operation Smile. I was able to participate in the mission last year, and I got to see first hand how we have the power to change lives for good.
Last year, we were able to raise enough money to fund a mission to provide cleft palate surgeries to children in need. Cleft palates often cause complications for feeding and breathing in infants, and many of them don’t survive. The surgeries we were able to fund have been able to change the lives of these children and their families. The trip was able to pay for nearly 620 surgeries for patients in Brazil.
The success of Cydcor is based on our distinctive culture, which is one that is passionate about giving back to communities around the world. We have already been able to fund one more medical mission this year, and our goal is fund another. That is why we decided to launch the Day of Smiles Campaign. This weekend will unite participating teams from our network of more than 200 independent sales companies to raise money and hit our total goal of $400,000 for the year.
Our office has been developing programs throughout the year to raise money for our cause. We believe this weekend alone will fund a $150,000 mission. We ask for your support in restoring smiles to children around the world. Please visit Cydcor’s Operation Smile Team page to donate now. If two dozen people donate just ten dollars, we can fund a surgery.
Also, please follow Cydcor on Twitter and our Cydcor Operation Smile Facebook page to keep up with all the activity. If you are participating in the fundraiser, be sure to tell your friends online about it with the hashtag #dayofsmiles.