Every great tech company depends on the ingenuity of their best talent. Which is why finding and retaining talent is a top priority for employers – especially in light of the fierceness of the job market. But what role does company culture play in keeping your most innovative team members?
Workplace culture in Tech firms is typically seen to have many colourful corporate perks. Happy hours, nap rooms and in-office golf are to name but a few. But, whilst these may play some part in keeping people happy, they’re not the defining things that would make someone choose to remain in an organisation. Rather, it’s the vibrant workplace culture demonstrating a brilliant place to work, which employees really seek.
Company culture is a critical component of an organisation’s identity. It encapsulates the everyday experience of the employee at work whilst interacting with colleagues, management, and the work environment that surrounds them. Ultimately, it’s the feeling they leave with at the end of the day.
So, how do you create a consistently positive work culture that gets individuals excited about coming in and driven to deliver? What kind of tech company culture could foster an overall sense of employee satisfaction?
Here are five ways to build a great tech company culture that makes their employees look forward to coming back in day after day.
Facilitate Cross-functional Collaboration
Make it easy for different departments to work together by creating open lines of communications. This will enable every party to maximise and synchronise the work they’re doing.
For instance, products and sales teams communicating together means that salespersons can share the insights they receive from conversations with customers. In doing so, they get to play a part in shaping the building and development of a product.
Furthermore, it also means the product team can create a better user experience, because they learn what it is that customers and prospective customers are asking for.
This creates an environment of collaboration, where employees from different teams can lean into other areas of the business, share resources and break down silos.
Diversify your Workforce
One of the most restrictive things a tech company can do is have a team of people from similar backgrounds who all think in the same way.
This creates the perfect scenario for groupthink, where essentially every idea and decision more or less go uncontested. Eluding any possibility of a fresh, unique or standout approach.
Tech workplaces benefit greatly from having a team of people from diverse backgrounds, who bring more ideas and expertise to the melting pot. Some of the best results can come from people exchanging, challenging and further building on one another’s ideas. A workplace that has this quality embedded in its culture, also demonstrates that everyone’s perspectives are both valid and valued.
Diversity and inclusion in the workplace also mean that the company as a whole is more able to relate to the wider world and speak to a larger customer base.
Create an Atmosphere of Respect Across the Board
Whilst the opportunity for employees to challenge ideas is a characteristic that tech companies should look to develop within their company culture, it’s important that it be done respectfully.
Individuals need to feel they feel respected by colleagues, managers and in every other interactions they may have within work.
Make respect a known component of the company values and culture, ensuring everyone is in alignment with this. A fantastic tech company work culture is best cultivated in a dynamic team of people that have a fundamental respect for one another’s ideas, opinions, abilities and place in the organisation.
Implement Productivity Tools
Sometimes simple tasks can become convoluted and time-consuming when the right tools aren’t in place. With that in mind, which tools do your employees need in place to feel able to carry out their roles with ease and efficiency?
Investing in employees’ workspace and enabling them to approach work within their own individual working style, can go a long way in creating a positive working experience. This may mean providing headsets so they can move about as they have work calls, standing desks so they can take better care of their posture. Or, investing in a project management tool so they can streamline their workflow without unnecessary disruptions.
Consider inviting your people to suggest new tools that they believe would enable them to get more done, with greater collaboration and in potentially less time.
Encourage Ownership & Autonomy
There are many things that make individuals choose to work for tech companies, one being the possibility of ownership and autonomy.
Having the autonomy to build and create parts of a product can be a great motivation for employees.
Even having a hand in creating processes or being responsible for developing part of a company or team, can be a brilliant incentive. Because at the end of creating it, they can put their stamp on the finished result as a piece of work they did. It’s something that they definitively built.
Not only does this boost their confidence, provide a sense of fulfilment and achievement that inspires them to further grow with the company. It also creates an exciting and innovative culture within the organisation where everyone knows they play a significant part of the business.
In developing a great tech work culture for your company, you can boost productivity, create an impact on your bottom line, and hold onto your best people.
For more information and free resources on how to retain your top talent and cultivate a strong company culture, along with much more, join the conversation today!
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