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What is the essential characteristic of a good company culture for you?
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Open communication is crucial for me. It is important for people to express their thoughts openly to ensure a good company culture. What do you want to have in a company to improve culture?
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Rachel Wong
Trust! being able to lean on each other and trust your team is so important, helps create a great team dynamic when everyone is aligned with each other
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@rywong I completely agree. The chemistry amongst the team is directly related to trust. However, trust is hard to build but easy to lose.
Rachel Wong
@cagan_yildirim Completely! And it definitely takes time to build a solid foundation. Any tips you've found help with building trust?
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@rywong Spending time in the same office, small talks, and traveling together for a business journey, in other words, spending time to together without talking about business stuff was helping to create good communication among coworkers before the pandemic. We were not so aware of its power before, however, playing games together is another good way to create bonds (especially in the remote/hybrid work models). That's why we're building Guul as a social gaming platform for businesses :)
Wayne Smallman
Hi @rywong, a lot has been made of company culture and the ones that succeed — based on my own experiences — are the ones that self regulate, and that begins with trust.
For me, it's transparency, equality, recognition, and respect. And I'm sooo lucky to work at the company with these values.
Pooja Lahoti
For me, a good company culture is the one that makes employees feel valued and appreciated, so that they are encouraged to make meaningful contributions to the organization. When employees feel valued, they will be more loyal to the company and more likely to put in extra efforts.
MaheshVarma Kanumuri
Trust and Faith are essential characteristics. Feel free and let me know if you agree or disagree and also why?
Stefani Sparysheva
Transparency and compliance are a must for ALL companies nowadays. Other characteristics depend on the cultural set of the company. I appreciate flexibility.
Chetan Natesh
The culture must involve everyone in the growth of the company towards its ultimate vision. The CEO cannot sit with every employee and help them make every decision. This is where the culture comes in. The culture must help in putting things into perspective, it must make employees feel something like what the customer feels. For example I am building a new social media platform and I am planning on banning the word user in all company communication it must be replaced by the word customer because it will be a paid app not a free app.
Lauren Thomas
Totally agree. Everyone feeling safe enough to voice their opinion is huge. Curious to see what @jade_mack would say (our wonderful Head of People and Culture)
Jade Mackenzie
Ohhh so hard to narrow it down to just one essential characteristic :) I'd probably say trust & psychological safety, but also a collective pursuit of excellence, growth & accountability all help create a really healthy culture also.
Martine Hammar
Definitely trust and it works both ways. We adopted remote working a year or so before Covid, when it became the norm. People thought we were crazy. But I was always confused when people asked how we knew our team were working. It never dawned on me that we couldn't trust our team because if we didn't trust them, they wouldn't still be in the company, irrespective of whether they worked from the office or home. It definitely works both ways though, managers need to be reliable and trustworthy in order to earn the teams trust too!
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@martine_hammar That's true! Trust in remote work environments is easy to establish for younger generations as they have always been used to on-demand living. On the other side, X-gen and earlier generations sometimes find it quite hard to trust someone unless everything occurs in front of their eyes :)
Martine Hammar
@cagan_yildirim Agreed, but how much micromanaging can they really do if they're working at the same time?
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@martine_hammar That's another good point. Focusing on the outputs and the deadlines rather than trying to monitor every step like a big brother may be the key here.
Chris Watson
Appreciation & giving a chance to speak and express their reviews (even if working on a small level) can play a huge difference in employees' stake and will lead to the company's growth!
Cagri Sarigoz
For remote-only companies, I think the most critical component of a robust remote culture is trust in each other. Without trust, you cannot manage a remote team. For example, we don’t ask our team members to report their work hours to their managers. We only look for results and responsiveness to internal communication. Some other factors I think of are: - Asynchronous communication with some set of rules. E.g. responding to a Slack message within 24 hours on weekdays. - Self-serve new employee onboarding - Transparent goal-setting and project management for each team You can see more about how we work at the company I work for, CitizenShipper, here: https://www.gethailey.com/interv...
Rahul Jain
Freedom to make mistakes and incentives to excel. I think it creates an innovative work culture within the community
Elizabeth Obee
Aligned values across everyone - that means that no one is compromised and everyone feels in step with their team mates. Great for culture and morale!
Barış Kaya
Participatory workplace that values relationships above agendas, feedback culture, transparency & recognition of work
Sinay Salomon
Recognising good work is an important morale booster and helps encourage employee engagement. I think companies should have a formal reward system in place that provides other benefits to employees who help meet company objectives. Informal rewards—like notes, special events, or gifts—can also make employees feel valued without greatly affecting a company’s bottom line.
Diana Yerkanatova
Here are my top 10: Effective communication Diversity Learning opportunities Recognition Clear and defined purpose Positive environment Teamwork Goals and strategies Respect and fairness Strong leadership
Hansi Nissanka
I think having a culture where leadership is approachable and having a cultural attitude of trying new things without being held back due to fear of failure helps.
John Watkins
I'd probably say trust & psychological safety, but also a collective pursuit of excellence, growth & accountability all help create a really healthy culture also. A transparent environment with a free-to-speak approach. Everyone is working towards the same goal when you're in an organization.
Goutham
Not micromanaging is a big differentiator for me & such companies easily stand out :)
Çağan Yıldırım
@gouthamj absolutely! Check out the side effects of micromanaging on employee engagement -> https://www.gartner.com/en/artic...
ekaterina starodumova
Agree with everything said here. To me, also it's important that the company allows you to choose whether or not you want to participate in entertainment and doesn't force anything on you. That helps build trust.
Natalia D
@ekaterina_starodumova Totally agree. Its very uncomfortable, when you are have to participate in entertainments without your own desire.
Margarita Podoprigora
@dotokoto what is your worst experience?