Thinking about the shape your culture should take as soon as possible is essential. There are many advantages to doing so, including improved employee satisfaction, higher retention rates and accelerated growth.

Credibility and confidence are excellent cornerstones for company culture in any fledgling firm. Let’s look at what this means, why this matters and what you can do to move towards them.

The question of company values

Businesses are often encouraged to consider the values they want to represent, and to integrate these into their mission statement both to attract the right talent and to appeal to their ideal target demographic.

This is all well and good, but the values of an organisation can be nebulous and ill-defined, or even poorly chosen, if you don’t think carefully about which ones to pick on day one.

Rather than vague terms like innovation and excellence, it is better to look toward company values employees care about. In this way you will be able to set out your stall and connect with the best people to suit your startup, rather than throwing the net too wide with generic totems of a company culture which almost any business could promise.

So what are the most relevant and attractive values which modern, progressive startups should seek to strive towards? Let’s look at the main contenders:

Inclusivity

The workers of the modern era are eager to enter workplaces which are focused on inclusion. This can take many forms, but broadly speaking means that a business is open to accommodate individuals from all walks of life and backgrounds.

This can be expressed through a friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the office, a flatter hierarchy which gives people at all points on the spectrum of seniority their say in important matters, as well as through more practical aspects like providing easy access for wheelchair users and employees with other disabilities.

The point is not just to say your company culture is all about inclusivity, but back this up with actions. Your credibility will suffer if you don’t follow through on the promises you make.

Progression & purpose

Employees need to know that they can grow within the startup that hires them, both within the initial role they take on and in terms of their career progression to more senior positions with greater responsibilities in years to come.

Without the prospect of growth, a job will essentially be a dead-end, from which ambitious and talented individuals will seek to escape at the earliest possible opportunity.

It’s hard for startups to hold onto their assets unless they provide a clear avenue for progression. More than anything, it shows that you have confidence in the business, and the expectation that it will succeed in its chosen marketplace, thus enabling employees to thrive along with it.

This must also go hand in hand with making work feel purposeful. While the main motivation for plenty of team members will be earning a salary to facilitate their lifestyle and secure their future prospects, if this is the only aim then burnout is inevitable.

Creating a sense of collective purpose is achievable if you keep everyone in the loop about both the aims of the organisation, and also the milestones that you pass along the way. 

Recognising the contribution of employees and showing how their efforts go towards forging a path for the startup will make the job more meaningful than money alone.

Flexibility

Another step which exudes confidence and gives your company credibility even if it is a newcomer to the scene is its approach to flexible working.

This factors in things like offering remote work opportunities to employees at all levels, which is essentially a must in the post-pandemic era. But it must also include aspects like the hours that team members are expected to work, the balance between their professional responsibilities and their personal life, and the vacation time that is provided to them.

For a long time, startups have suffered from a bad reputation because of the impression that founders and the first few team members are expected to work round the clock, sacrificing their social lives in order to get the business off the ground. 

Such expectations are increasingly seen as toxic, and not conducive to a healthy, happy workforce in the long run.

Indeed when employees are overburdened with expectations of endless hours of work each week, they are actually less productive. It’s no surprise that four day working weeks are being trialled in lots of parts of the world right now. 

People can get more done in less time if they are given flexibility, and not made to feel guilty about this.

Remuneration

Earlier we spoke about employee salaries not being the only motivation for taking satisfaction in work. However, it is still the responsibility of startups to offer competitive, fair pay to team members, or else all that effort you have put into creating a positive, progressive culture will crumble under scrutiny.

A credible, confident company is one which rewards its employees, and doesn’t rely on its reputation to cut corners when it comes to pay, or expect workers to make sacrifices without adequate remuneration.

If a business is built by exploiting its workers in some way, then its claims of having an inclusive, purposeful culture will simply not ring true.

Final thoughts

Startups need to realise that company culture isn’t just a topic for multinational corporations to boast about. It can be nurtured in small firms and used to secure genuine, sustainable growth by benefiting employees.

The cost of failing to care for your team members is far greater than that of taking their hopes, dreams and needs seriously in the workplace.