The Importance Of Developing A Company Culture

What is Your Ideal Company Culture?

The first step is determining what you want your company’s corporate culture to look like. It can often be a good idea to research other companies in either the mortgage industry or outside of this space and see what their corporate cultures look like to get a more complete picture of what you want your organization’s culture to resemble. As you are planning and researching, think about the following key areas to help guide the development of your corporate culture: your company’s mission and goals, how your company treats its employees, how your organization communicates internally, and finally, general expectations regarding work/life balance. All of these factors will contribute to what your company culture ultimately looks like.

First and foremost, your company’s mission and goals will be one of the largest influences on your culture. A business with a strong mission and clearly stated goals gives its employees a shared purpose and a foundation to work from. A company’s mission and goals provide a better idea of what employees are working towards and why. General expectations within the organization are better defined.

From there, the next area to focus on is how you want your company to treat its employees. This will be a defining factor in your company’s culture. For example, consider things like whether there will be a strong emphasis placed on employee recognition, will team-building activities be a regular occurrence, will there be employee training opportunities, or will mentorship programs exist? Investing in the happiness and growth of your employees can really improve company culture and also create a culture that is extremely appealing to potential hires.

At the same time, you should also determine general expectations for work/life balance in your organization. Do you plan to offer flexible work accommodations like a hybrid office model? What does paid time off look like? Will it be set or unlimited? Will mental health resources be offered to employees? Just like how you plan to treat your employees can ultimately create a more positive or negative corporate culture, the way you choose to address employees’ work/life balance can also create a more or less attractive culture overall.

Finally, the last aspect you should consider is how your organization communicates internally. Communication within an organization, or lack thereof, can really hurt an organization’s ability to have a strong culture. If information is not easily disseminated across departments, this can cause employees to be more closed off and think they should be keeping details to themselves. In the long run, this can cause tension between departments and employees due to a lack of transparency. This can also cause processes to be siloed, meaning things may be implemented or changed without thinking of the organization as a whole, which can cause major issues down the line. Having more open communication and providing guidelines as to how to best share information in the organization can create a greater sense of community where employees feel well-informed and more connected to the company overall.

Company Culture Can Be A Moving Target

As you work to define or refine your company culture, it’s important to understand that a strong corporate culture is not something that happens instantaneously. The process of creating a positive culture is going to take time. Your company culture is also something that is going to have to be monitored and maintained through ongoing efforts. Once you have determined what you want your corporate culture to be, you need to promote it continuously and make sure that the efforts you are making reflect what you want the culture to be. From time to time, it’s a great idea to gather feedback from employees about how they feel the culture is in the workplace and if they feel it matches up to what is being presented to them. A positive corporate culture will always be a moving target for your organization, but the benefits of putting in that work will ultimately pay dividends.