Company culture, hiring, and retention are ever-present on the minds of HR leaders — even more so after navigating the trials of the past four years. At its best, company culture is a symbiotic relationship; the workplace attracts and retains top talent, and those employees become the reinforcing function of a positive company culture.
Linda Lee, Chief People and Culture Officer at Velocity Global, understands this dynamic well. She’s developed a framework for transforming a company culture based on her more than 25 years of experience in business development, operations, strategy, communications, culture, and human resources.
At a recent Workplace Workshop for Norwest portfolio leaders, I invited Linda to share her playbook and learnings from implementing culture change at several different companies. We explored techniques for building a positive company culture, values-based hiring, cultural transformation, CEO support, and related topics. I’ve synthesized Linda’s observations on the topics we discussed below.
Common Framework for Driving Cultural Change
1. Gain Strong Support from the CEO Early On
Table stakes for effecting any kind of cultural change is buy-in and active support from the senior management team, and most especially the CEO. To win the hearts and minds of the C-suite executives, Linda recommends one-on-one meetings to learn their point of view on the current culture, as well as what changes they believe need to be made. Obtaining guidance and constructive ideas will help garner support, and for Linda, has resulted in new ideas that led to quick wins.
Any HR leader will tell you that building and sustaining a positive company culture requires everyone to be involved — it must be led from the top, supported by grassroot efforts, and not viewed as another “HR program.” Each employee is affected by the environment in which they work, and at the same time, contributes to that culture through their attitudes and actions.
Ultimately, change takes time — sometimes, a lot of time. We can’t expect cultural transformations to happen overnight; we should think in terms of quarters and years, not months. Linda emphasized this point through an anecdote about one of the companies she worked for.
She worked with her team to transform 3,000 willing financial professionals from competent and effective back-office accountants to more broad-thinking strategic business partners. A shift that big required resources, support, and sponsorship — and it still took over two years to achieve the transformation. But it happened! It’s a good reminder that culture is always a work in progress, and you must constantly work towards the vision, adjusting the resources and strategies as you go.
Any HR leader will tell you that building and sustaining a positive company culture requires everyone to be involved — it must be led from the top, supported by grassroot efforts, and not viewed as another “HR program.”
2. Create a Culture Committee
The Culture Committee is a group of top performers, nominated by executives, who serve one-year terms. They act as culture ambassadors, explaining and reinforcing the core values of the company. All decisions that might affect culture are run through the committee.
By rotating high-performing employees through the committee, a company forms an ever-expanding group of “insiders” who are bought into the core values and are charged with finding ways to reinforce and uphold them. You build an army of cultural ambassadors over time who are accountable to the company’s goal. Linda has found these employees to be more engaged — they can provide an “ear to the ground” with employee sentiment as well, creating a positive symbiotic relationship of mutual trust and benefit.
3. Workshop Your Company’s Core Values — You May Even Need an Overhaul
Linda follows a rigorous, bottoms-up process for defining core values. She facilitates brainstorming workshops throughout the company, giving employees a chance to offer their perspectives on what’s important to them, what makes them special, and what behaviors they want to reinforce. The results of these sessions are synthesized and analyzed, and eventually, a consolidated list of core values is selected by the Culture Committee and executive leadership team.
An important step in defining core values is to take a realistic assessment of how the values are currently reflected in company practices. Are the values aspirational or are they the actual behaviors we reinforce through the ways we recognize and reward our employees? Your company’s core values should guide all the critical relationships and activities in the company: how you treat your customers, partners, and each other; how you develop products; how you use your resources; and the priorities you set when making tough decisions.
Your company’s core values should guide all the critical relationships and activities in the company.
Your company values become an important part of how you recruit, hire, and onboard new employees. At Velocity Global, Linda’s team makes every effort to make new joiners feel welcome. The Culture Committee takes time during onboarding to discuss the company’s culture, and the ways in which the stated values show up in the way the company operates and the way employees treat each other. New hires are assigned an onboarding buddy who can answer questions and be a go-to resource. Their global HR Slack channel, where new employees introduce themselves, encourages participation with easy questions every week to encourage engagement and participation, like “What is your most often used Slack emoji?”
4. Build a Recognition Program and Incentivize Participation
To make sure your values exercises don’t become forgotten “shelfware”, we recommend you build in programs that acknowledge and recognize behaviors that reinforce the culture you are trying to build. You can do this by showcasing team members who embody the core values at all-hands meetings and on social media. Linda and her team implemented a recognition program using hashtags and shout-outs for employees to recognize their peers. Giving teams an outlet to share appreciation helps employees to feel recognized for their hard work and provides another opportunity to reinforce a positive culture.
Another fun option for recognition and celebration is peer-based company value awards. On a regular cadence, peers nominate employees who exemplify a company value and have made a business impact. Those winners may get a story written up about them, time with the CEO, a feature on social media, or even additional PTO!
An important benefit of these programs is also that they can bring together employees who may not see or talk to one another in an average workday. We know many HR leaders are dealing with the challenges of a dispersed workforce and believe these initiatives do a great job of engaging and integrating remote employees. A well-designed intranet site is also a great tool that Linda has found particularly valuable engagement. At Velocity Global, they have an art contest among the employees with a $500 donation to a charity of choice for winners.
Giving teams an outlet to share appreciation helps employees to feel recognized for their hard work and provides another opportunity to reinforce a positive culture.
5. Establish Office Culture Clubs and ERGs
Two other programs Linda recommends establishing are in-person office culture clubs and employee resource groups (ERGs). Culture clubs organize events related to company values, often with the involvement of the culture committee members.
ERGs focus on the needs and goals of specific groups, such as women, LGBTQ+ and other groups that may be underrepresented in your company or industry. Linda suggests supporting one or two self-organized ERGs at a time and leveraging the culture committee to promote the new groups.
Linda’s framework underscores a profound truth: cultivating a values-based cultural transformation isn’t just about surface-level changes; it’s about reshaping the very DNA of an organization. These strategies offer tangible ways to strengthen company culture, attract top talent, and drive engagement which will ultimately impact organizational success.
