Corporate Culture Examples

If you’ve been looking for some corporate culture examples, look no further. I’ve pulled together a handful of ideas that you can put into action to help your employees become raving fans of the organization. Some of them are easy to implement in the short term, others might take a little more work to get started, but all of them can make a difference! (If you’re looking for more ideas, check out this list of 50 HR challenges.)

Remember, great companies don’t just happen. They are intentional creations that require hard work and dedication, but they’re worth it.

    1. Create a trophy (can be as simple as gluing a pen to a piece of plywood, nothing fancy needed!). Have an employee designate someone else to receive the trophy for embodying one of the organization’s core values. Get the employees to pass the award along at predetermined intervals (weekly, monthly, etc.).
    2. Start an informal peer recognition bulletin board.
Rock Your Culture

Check out the Rock Your Culture Guide for more great info on how to define and leverage your corporate cultlure.

  1. Get one of your senior leaders to commit to spending 30 minutes with new hires on their first day. I’d suggest having a predetermined agenda (explaining the corporate structure, etc.) but also leaving a little time to just freewheel and talk about why the leader enjoys working there, what the person can expect, unwritten rules, etc. It’s a great way to start building trust in the leadership from the very first day on the job.
  2. Take time to define corporate culture for candidates to make better hires.
  3. Hold town hall meetings/teleconferences where employees are the focus, not the company.
  4. Survey new hires with two questions: How welcome did you feel on your first day? How could we have made that experience better?
  5. If you’re looking to spend some money, that opens up things like offering paid time for volunteering in the community, allowing people to take whole or half days off occasionally, sharing gift cards/certificates with staff members, purchasing meals/drinks to stock the office, etc.
  6. Hold a hackathon (modified to fit your employee skill sets) to get people energetic and excited about working in new ways.

Again, these are just a few short ideas, and I have to caution you on this: if your company’s corporate culture stinks then none of these things will do a single bit of good. They can enhance a great working environment if it already exists, but it won’t instantly repair the relationship if the organization has not treated its people well. The other item to remember is that all cultures are not created equal. Wearing jeans to work here is just another normal day, but wearing them at my previous employer took an act of Congress to make it happen. You need to know what fits your own situation before you decide what you can offer.

Anyone work in a company with a fun, unique culture? I’d love to hear some ideas!

 

9 thoughts on “Corporate Culture Examples

  1. I_Consistency

    I met a president that combines #1 & #2. They have a kick ass award where employees nominate another for demonstrating high performance aligned to company values. They have a cork board with all previous nominations. It’s a weekly exchange and story telling. Great culture builder. This same company also has Ted Talk Tuesdays where anyone can choose to watch the Ted talk and discuss afterwards.

  2. Alyssa G. Ruff

    When working at a large fortune 100 company, we built an internal recognition tool that allowed you to post on the company’s intranet about great performance of anyone within the organization (and tag team members). The system would email the manager to let them know to check it out. It had a social media feel and was really well received as an easy way to recognize others. It was also great for a large, global company with a high number of remote workers to feel connected.

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