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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.
Most highly successful people share one important trait: focus. They know what their purpose is and what they want to achieve, and everything they do and say aims to bring them closer to their goals. But maintaining that intense level of dedication and drive takes effort.
When striving toward any goal, it’s important to find ways to remind yourself why that goal is so important to you so you can stay focused. Creating a personal mission statement gives you a way to identify your values, commit to your goals, and put yourself on a path toward success.
QUESTIONS FOR CREATING A PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT
To create your own personal mission statement, start by asking yourself these questions:
THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT
There are many benefits to creating a mission statement to help you reach your goals:
PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENTS FROM NAMES YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE
High achievers in many industries live by a personal mission statement. Here are a few:
Gary Polson, CEO, Cydcor
“As CEO of Cydcor, I will assure the long-term growth and health of Cydcor and the opportunity by 1) attracting, developing, motivating and recognizing our people; 2) developing a culture of sustainable success; 3) overseeing the strategy; 4) focusing on the financial health of the field; and 5) building relationships with our key people and connecting with the newer people.”
Richard Branson, CEO, The Virgin Group
“To have fun in (my) journey through life and learn from (my) mistakes.” (Motivated Magazine, 2011)
Oprah Winfrey, CEO OWN
“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.” (Oprah.com, 2009)
Amanda Steinberg, CEO, Dailyworth.com
“To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma, and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world.” (Forbes, 2014)
Creating a personal mission statement is just one more way you can position yourself to reach your goals. Writing down your goals, values, and vision for your future is a form of commitment in itself, but creating a mission statement does not guarantee success. In order to make your mission statement work to your benefit, you must imbue it with importance. Whether daily, weekly, or monthly, check in with and remind yourself of your mission statement to keep yourself faithful to its message. Consider keeping it by your bedside, taped to your bathroom mirror, or posted at your desk. You could even use your mission statement as part of your social media profile as way to subtly invite others to hold you accountable as well.
While the act of creating a personal mission statement can help you learn a lot, committing to its message could help you transform it from words into reality.
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.
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.