‍Company culture is something that everyone subscribes to, but very few actually master. And the challenges don’t stop once you’ve got your company culture down on paper. If your business is growing fast, and you want to develop and sustain high-performing teams, you’ll have to master a whole new skill; scaling culture. 

When it comes to building on existing company culture, there’s lots to consider; how culture is already communicated, whether your teams are local or distributed, and so on. 

But for me, there’s one key lesson that we need to understand in order to do this well; to scale culture, you need buy-in from people at all levels of the organisation. 

At Frankli, we sometimes sum this up by saying;

Grow fast, but grow together.

Today, I’m sharing some learnings on scaling company culture, in the form of a useful, step-by-step guide, including some practical tips.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Scaling Culture

1. Link Company Values to Key Behaviours

In Step One, we define each company value or belief with two or three behaviours that people within the organisation might exhibit or observe. For example, if innovation is one of our company values, the associated behaviours might be pursuing new ideas, taking risks with your work, and prioritising time for creative brainstorming. 

This step has a dual purpose. First, it ensures everyone is working from the same cultural definitions. Second, it ensures abstract values can be seen in real-life examples. 

‍TIP: Make values stick by discussing them at all-hands meetings. And when these positive behaviours are observed, be sure to celebrate them publicly through praise and recognition.

2. Hire with Culture in Mind

Hiring at scale requires you to make consistently good decisions about the people you bring onto your teams.

When people across the business are aligned on culture, and keep it at the forefront of their minds, they have a better chance of recruiting the right people, and, better still, they’re able to make important hiring decisions quickly. 

TIP: When hiring, look for people who are a good culture fit. Hire people who are smarter than you and better than you in areas you don’t know much about.

3. Live and Breathe the Company’s Mission

Productivity and growth go hand in hand, but neither can happen unless people have a clear sense of purpose in their work. This means understanding how their workflows affect certain business outcomes.

It's up to the founding team to regularly bring the company’s mission into team conversations, and align people through personal and team goals that feed into the company’s wider goals.

TIP: Share the company strategy with the entire team, and ensure the company’s mission is in the background - or foreground!- of every conversation. 

4. Develop a Framework for Measuring Engagement

Most companies obsess over the financial details of their business.

But when you’re growing fast, you also need to get serious about measuring employee engagement. By this, I mean a cadence for capturing feedback from your people, studying the results, and taking action when required.

‍TIP: Engagement platforms like Frankli help make the process of measuring engagement more efficient. With Frankli, you can digitise the process of sharing, seeking and capturing feedback, and easily identify key takeaways through analytics.

5. Support your Leadership Team

Managers are key transmitters of culture. There are only so many people you can have a direct influence on, so you need managers to carry the message forward across the company.

For this reason, it’s crucial that managers know their role in scaling culture, and are well equipped to do so. 

TIP: Give leadership teams the coaching and resources they need to be able to communicate and demonstrate company culture, and make it relevant to the day-to-day workings of their teams.

With Frankli, you can take the guesswork out of scaling culture through intuitive Goals, Feedback and Connect features. Find out more here.

‍Introduction: In order to effectively scale culture, leaders need buy-in from their people. At Frankli, we like to say, “Grow fast, but grow together.” With this in mind, I created a step-by-step guide to scaling company culture.

‍1. Link Company Values to Key Behaviours

Discuss company values and associated behaviours at all-hands meetings. When team members exhibit them, be sure to celebrate this publicly through praise and recognition.

‍2. Hire with Culture in Mind

Make sure culture is top of mind during the hiring process, so leadership teams can recruit the right people, and, crucially, make important hiring decisions quickly. 

‍3. Live and Breathe the Company’s Mission

Regularly bring the company’s mission and strategy into team conversations. Give your people purpose by aligning them through personal and team goals that feed into the company’s wider goals.

‍4. Develop a Framework for Measuring Engagement

Treat measuring employee engagement as seriously as you do the financial side of the business. Use a platform like Frankli to manage and capture feedback, and easily identify key takeaways through analytics.

‍5. Support your Leadership Team

Give leadership teams the coaching and resources they need to be able to communicate and demonstrate company culture, and make it relevant to the day-to-day workings of their teams.

With Frankli, you can take the guesswork out of scaling culture through intuitive Goals, Feedback and Connect features. Find out more here. ‍