How to build a great company culture!
2 min readMar 11, 2021
Want to build a great company culture? Here are your four essential components.
- Tell us what you want us to work on. Be as specific as you reasonably can, given our level and responsibilities. Don’t vaguely gesture at, “you know, try to find things to work on that will support our mission,” and then chastise us for not finding the thing you were thinking of but didn’t tell us.
Can’t do that? Bad culture! - Give us access to the people and resources we need to do the work. Make it clear and easy to find the domain experts and the documentation. Don’t have progress or knowledge gated behind people who don’t respond to questions or document their knowledge.
Can’t do that? Bad culture! - Acknowledge, publicly, the accomplishments and hard work we’re putting in. If there’s a defined system for atta-boys, use it. Encourage a habit of people high-fiving each other for getting stuff done and solving problems. Don’t simply assume we’re happily trucking along doing our work with no particular acknowledgment. Especially don’t atta-boy the same five people every week. Trust me, it’s noticed.
Can’t do that? Bad culture! - Pay us fairly, based on the standards and trends in our industry. Life costs money. We work for you for money. We don’t work for you for fun.
Can’t do that? Bad culture (and a lot of trouble keeping employees, too)! - Bonus! Use the money you saved not doing bullshit “culture surveys” for employee perks.
