Participants at the SPK Corporate Culture Meeting didn’t think twice when I asked them why they had ever left a job. There were a variety of reasons, but the common thread was that their personal values didn’t align with the company’s values.
The colorful Jacques Blanchet, founder of Leblancdesyeux , general manager of the Bureau des affaires poétiques and host of CreativeMornings Québec , was with us to dissect the pillars of a strong corporate culture. His atypical career, ranging from visual arts to the drafting of Quebec and international standards, challenged our participants who identified with the intuitive approach of the consultant. In everyday life, Jacques chooses projects that make him dream and advises organizations on change management, public engagement and original thinking.
Corporate culture VS employer brand
First, corporate culture is not the employer brand, which has become a popular concept for human resources in these times of labor shortages. Highlighting attractive elements of an organization to attract candidates, such as slovenia mobile phone numbers database skateboards, bean bags, or working in slippers, is showing off equipment. This is not what really sets a company apart. Culture is also (a lot) what we don’t see : the daily attitude, the values shared by team members, their knowledge and their behaviors. In the best case, this is what will give employees the desire to truly commit to an organization and move in the same direction .
Beware of battles lost in advance
From the outset, we specified that a corporate culture does not fall from the sky. Founders or managers greatly influence it with their personality. For example, the silence of the large company that has a good tips on how to conduct a briefing for a telemarketing agency reputation thanks to the way it treats its many employees and its multiple involvements in the community, but which never speaks about it publicly probably comes from the humility of its founder.
Conversely, the leader who sees himself as innovative and wants his organization to be seen as such, but who does not support employee initiatives and does not take concrete actions risks creating frustrations internally. We often hear the example of the manager who wants to adopt the agile approach , but who is resistant to change. There are techniques to encourage change (Jacques talked about it in this post on the Inspirés blog ), but if employees do not have the support of management, they risk getting burned by hitting a wall.
Marianne Théorêt-Poupart also gave the inspiring example of managers who decided to consult their best employees to understand what their motivations were and find concordances with theirs to overhaul the company’s values. “Values are not inspirational, they are what already exists,” she added.
What really sets you apart?
In my work, I often have to analyze the positioning of organizations in specific industries. Sometimes I look at their website and think that we could swap out the logos and it wouldn’t make a difference. Who doesn’t call themselves business to consumer reviews friendly, passionate, innovative? Who doesn’t believe in the importance of simplicity, quality, and customer satisfaction? Maybe it’s our attitude that really sets us apart, our way of embracing this difference. We have to stop trying to please everyone, because as I pointed out during the meeting: “By trying to fit in, we become a pie.”
Communicating your beliefs
They say that actions speak louder than words, and it’s true. At SPK, for example, our values are reflected in important choices: whether it’s keeping a maximum of 20 employees to preserve our culture, allowing remote work while traveling around the world (as long as there’s Wi-Fi!) or supporting startups that aren’t necessarily unanimous in public opinion, but that we believe in, like Maitrileaf , which works in the cannabis industry.