Choose the Best Company Culture for Your Well-Being

Whether you’re just starting out or are looking for a new job, company culture is among the most important aspects to consider during your search. As a job applicant, you want to find a culture that aligns with your values.

Workers finally have more options and companies are now competing for the best and brightest in their fields. The best and brightest come with perks of creative thinking, increased productivity, and innovation but they cost more than just a paycheck. In fact, most job hunters probably consider flexible working hours, remote working options, paid leave, and office atmosphere more valuable than money.

Competitive Culture

Companies that lead this way can be successful in the short term, but eventually, the competitive culture will instill fear in employees. While competitiveness is usually a good thing in the business world, encouraging competition between individuals or departments within an organization is no longer the preferred approach. Research shows that today many organizations are moving toward a more collaborative and team-based approach.

Hands-Off Culture

If you tend to think people put too much pressure on themselves and your top priorities aren’t money and success, you’ll feel right at home in a hands-off culture. These companies don’t micromanage their people or push them to compete; they simply let them do their own thing.

Collaborative Culture

In a collaborative culture, managers put their employees first. A collaborative culture is one that builds trust and support between all employees. A collaborative culture is founded on connection. When your co-workers and managers are committed to helping those around them succeed, it means more success for the company as well as the individuals within it.

Let’s look at a few aspects of company culture that people now look for when job hunting.

Community

Overall unity within a workforce and a sense of community can go a long way. This can include celebrating special events, sharing profits, and treating layoffs as a last resort. The importance of unity extends to giving back to the community. Unity and community also create conditions for better employee cooperation.

Fairness

Companies where employees feel like everyone is getting a fair opportunity consistently report more positive employee experiences. Employees at companies that valued fairness aren’t just focusing on pay, less tangible aspects of the workplace, such as pride and strong leadership, play a much larger role.

Employees say that being paid fairly for their work makes them twice as likely to think their workplace is great. But when employees are proud of their work, they are 20 times more likely to say it’s a great workplace.

Well-Being

Every company says it values employees, but the best companies don’t say it; they show it. Over the past year-and-a-half we saw exceptional support for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and we also saw some companies treating people poorly in the face of record loss. Employees will remember how they were treated when their lives were upended.

Overall well-being extends to all aspects of company culture. Understanding the needs of working parents, offering maternity leave, remote working options, and flexible hours are all a part of a company that cares about its employees as people. 

Office culture counts a lot. It’s a relatively new concept but it’s more important than ever. Now companies can spend years cultivating the perfect culture; making hires and promotions on the values they want to harness. A company is its people. If a business builds a creative, supportive, and productive culture, employees tend to be creative, supportive, and productive people.