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Creating a culture for success

A great workplace culture can be the difference between success and failure in a small business. Get it right and you create a productive and enjoyable work environment get it wrong and your staff will be unmotivated and business unprofitable.

One Newcastle based business that has made culture a priority is Sumo, a successful creative agency which counts big names such as Barclays, University of Cambridge and National Trust amongst it’s clients.

“Our greatest assets walk out the door every single night, and we want to make sure they come back,” says Jim Richardson, Managing Director at Sumo. “We’ve taken the time to create a culture that will keep our team happy.”

This focus on keeping staff happy will become more important as the economy improves and employees find that they have more options. A recent survey by Recruitment consultant Reed found that confidence is returning to the jobs market and 33% of those surveyed said they expected to change jobs in 2014.

So how do you create a culture which will help to retain top employees, and attract new staff as the improving economy creates opportunities for growth?

“I think it comes down to having a vision that people can believe in,” Richardson tells me, “at Sumo we give our team perks like free lunches, beer, bonuses and trips to conferences, but I think it is doing something that we believe in which gets everyone out of bed in the morning.”

This kind of joint vision can’t be dictated by management, and it won’t happen overnight. Richardson is convinced that it is ‘your people make it happen’, suggesting that businesses need to be brave enough to involve employees from across the organisation and learn what makes people tick.

“We see this when we run brand workshops for clients, working with organisations to help them to build their vision. The people who you’d least expect to add value to the conversation often have the most to say.”

Once you have this clear vision of what your business stands for, then you need to align everything that you do with that. Taking the time to hire for your culture is key to that.

“Obviously new hires weren’t involved in the development of our vision, so at Sumo we make sure everyone who we employ fits with our culture, afterall it is a lot easier to teach someone a new software package than expect them to change their personality or ambitions.”

Hiring for culture can take longer than basing decisions purely on skills, but taking this extra time ultimately reduces staff turnover and will make for a better culture and save money in the long run.

Your vision should also play a role in every other aspect of you business, guiding your decisions on what products to sell, which customers to target, how your offices look amongst others.

But doesn’t money trump culture in the end, isn’t it the amount of money which someone takes home each month which ultimately motivates them to come to work?

Richardson concludes: “I think we pay our people well, but so will our competitors. Our culture is what makes the difference between someone choosing to work at Sumo or the place down the road, it’s our killer app.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Seb Wong .