Company culture isn't about beanbags, branded pens or pool tables - it's all about the way you do things.
Building a company culture is an iterative process that concerns how happy your employees are, and how much they can grow - testing, failing, learning, and testing some more.
Your organisation is the petri dish, and how you build the culture within it determines how well your employees (and business) thrives.
Want to learn from those who know their stuff when it comes to nailing culture at work? Here’s ten company culture blogs that we think are definitely worth a read.
1) Officevibe
Scrolling Officevibe’s blog is just a pleasurable experience. It’s clean, neat, and user friendly, as well as offering eye catching illustrations in all the right places.
Officevibe is a SaaS company that helps businesses create engagement at work, so they’re well placed to offer the nuts-and-bolts of bringing a smile to your teams as a leader. We particularly love their piece on how to motivate your employees.
2) Atlassian
You could say Atlassian is the King (or Queen) of SaaS. They make tools like Jira and Trello that are used by millions of people, working with over 170,000 companies worldwide.
So they know a thing or two about what makes teams thrive, with access to all of that lovely data. Their blog ‘Worklife’ feels like a delightful escape from work, when it’s actually not - clever. With subjects such as ‘could active listening solve all your work problems?’ they offer simple, tactical solutions that leaders can implement straightaway.
3) Hubspot
Hubspot offers an all in one solution for your marketing, sales and CRM. So the Hubspot blog is a one-stop-shop for all things marketing and business. They’re not specifically focused on workplace culture, but they do know their stuff when it comes to handling people like a boss.
This year, they produced a mammoth guide to building your own company culture, with tons of examples, links, and cheat-sheets.
They’ve even thrown in a downloadable ‘company culture cookbook’ for free. How kind.
4) GreatPlaceToWork
Yup, the clue’s in the name. If you’re looking at turning your business into a great place to work, these guys are worth a follow.
GreatPlaceToWork is the global authority on workplace culture, and offers research, academic insight and certification on employee satisfaction and organisational performance.
Their blog is the magpie of the company culture world - collectors of shiny workplace examples that will give you inspiration and get you ready to organise that next team perk or that new way of conducting meetings.
5) Culturegene
Culturegene is an interesting blog. It takes a film-critic-esque view on different company cultures, reviewing and analysing them for their merits and failures. There’s lots of other stuff in there too, but this is something they do really well. A piece called ‘Netflix is not the problem: in defense of strong organizational cultures’ is worth a read.
6) Referral Candy
Want some inspiration to refresh your company culture? Grab a cuppa and take a deep dive into this piece from Referral Candy, a SaaS referral program.
Their ‘Culture is Built, not Bought’ piece has some mind-fizzing examples from around the world, including an example from the CEO of Zappos where he is so confident in his culture he will pay employees $2,000 to quit.
7) Pingboard
Creating a company culture is one thing, but talking about it can be a tricky task. If you know what you offer but want your staff to repeat it too, Pingboard offers a helpful list of 32 words that many people use when talking about culture.
Companies thrive on culture, but how are you describing yours? Curious, relaxed, nimble? When you can define it, the word should spread quickly throughout your organisation.
8) Growth Engineering
You might have a solid culture in place. People like coming to work, they like you, and they’re doing pretty well at their job. But do you know how to growth-hack your culture?
The Growth Engineering blog offers lots of useful tips to upgrade your organisational culture, such as implementing gamification, and providing special challenges for your workforce.
“Research by the Aberdeen Group discovered organisations who deploy gamification improve engagement by 48%” - Growth Engineering
9) Safety Culture
Safety Culture, creators of one of the world’s top digital inspection apps, won the award for the 4th best company to work for in Australia, and for good reason. They have built a working culture around fast iterative processes, whilst keeping their teams happy in the process - no easy feat.
Their Medium blog gives a lowdown of how they’ve achieved such a robust culture, giving insights such as generous parental leave, running ‘common language’ workshops, and encouraging bravery by giving candid feedback.
10) Salesforce
If any business knows about people, it should be Sales and CRM giant Salesforce. They listen clearly to their employees - and it shows. When it comes to the Future of Work, these guys are top of their game.
Their ‘360’ blog lives up to its name as it covers all aspects of company culture, with snappy titles and crisp images. Perfect for a midday scroll.
Creating a great company culture is about having your finger on the pulse, and being responsive to your employees needs and emotions. They’ve shown this commitment to listening by posting a timely blog topic on making commitments for staff’s mental wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic.