Create a culture that means business™
Email address
In a competitive job market, cultivating the best organizational culture possible is essential to a company’s success. With 48% of employees watching out for or actively searching for a new role, it’s clear that an inclusive and supportive work environment is non-negotiable. When employees feel connected to a company’s mission, values, and culture – they’re less likely to look elsewhere.
Getting workplace culture right is a must for every organization, but it’s hard to know where to start. To get your creative juices flowing, look at these great examples of how companies across industries build cultures that engage their employees and lead to business success.
What is the best organizational culture?
The strength of organizational culture lies in the sum of its parts—the core values, attitudes, and behavior of its leaders, employees, and business processes. The key elements that serve as the building blocks for incredible corporate culture is made up of:
- Strong leadership: Leadership that can offer clarity into their vision, strategy, while communicating effectively is essential to building great culture.
- Employee engagement: If employees are satisfied with their roles and display high levels of commitment to the company, they’ll be more productive as well.
- Open communication: There should be open dialogue within the organization, with frequent and transparent exchanges, teamwork and collaboration.
- Diversity and inclusion: Efforts to foster diversity, inclusion, and promote equity should be at the forefront, as the best organizational cultures create a sense of belonging for all employees.
- Employee well-being: Great company culture prioritizes employee well-being, which includes support for mental health, work-life balance, and overall wellness.
- Recognition and rewards: Culture with rewards and recognition will boost employee retention, morale, and help workers feel valued and acknowledged.
- Career development: Opportunities for professional development whether it’s through mentorship, learning new skills, and a culture of promoting from within, are indicators of strong company culture.
What type of culture is best for the workplace?
The best organizational culture for the workplace is one that promotes respect, trust, openness, continuous improvement, and collaboration—not just within teams but also across departments. It’s a work environment where employees feel supported, acknowledged, valued, and have a rooted sense of belonging.
According to research from Great Place to Work, people who feel like they belong at an organization are five times more likely to stay in their role for the long term and are three times more likely to eagerly anticipate coming to work.
A culture that promotes fairness is another common thread amongst highly ranked organizations, as surveyed employees rated these companies 37 to 42% above than the national average for areas related to equal recognition and compensation.
What are the 4 main types of organizational culture?
While there are many types of organizational cultures, broadly speaking, many fall into the following four categories. University of Michigan researchers Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn explored the qualities that make organizations effective, ultimately identifying these four types of organizational cultures:
1. Clan cultures
With an emphasis on horizontal structure and team collaboration, clan culture takes a people-oriented approach to building company culture. Boosting morale, improving the employee experience, and relationship building are top priorities, as well as teamwork and participation. Also, leaders are seen as mentors in this environment.
2. Hierarchy culture
With a great emphasis on structure and process, hierarchical culture prioritizes efficient processes, strong communication, and stability. This type of environment is results-driven and there are clear lines of accountability, authority, and communication within a hierarchy culture.
3. Market culture
This type of organizational culture is results-oriented, with tangible, measurable targets, and clear goals at the forefront. Financial success and a competitive spirit are a focal point here. In this environment, success hinges on market share, market leadership, competitive pricing, and highlights employee contributions to revenue.
4. Adhocracy culture
Adhocracy culture is dynamic, creative, and entrepreneurial—allowing employees to speak up, take initiative, and share their ideas. Risk taking is encouraged in this environment, as is thinking boldly, and success is determined by releasing new services and products or setting new trends.
12 examples of companies and with the best organizational culture
1. Patagonia
Patagonia is proud of their commitment to sustainability and bettering the planet. Boasting incredibly low turnover rates, Patagonia retains their employees by crafting unique and purpose-driven values.
Patagonia’s core values include: “build the best product,” “cause no unnecessary harm,” and “use business to protect nature.” In turn, these values attract dedicated candidates who align well with the organization’s culture.
Taking an unconventional approach to recruitment, talent teams read resumes from the bottom up, reviewing a candidate’s volunteer work, interests, and activities before experience and skills. Patagonia’s perks include two-month paid volunteer trips with an environmental organization as a first-year anniversary gift and onsite childcare centers.
2. The Body Shop
The Body Shop is a British cosmetics and skincare brand recognized for its dedication to sustainability, ethical practices, and social responsibility. After the company was started by Anita Roddick in 1976, the Body Shop paved the way by introducing cruelty-free cosmetics products and has been an advocate for human rights and environmental protection ever since.
There are a number of aspects that make the Body Shop’s company culture special, including their commitment to ethical sourcing. They’re in support of fair trade and community trade practices that help local communities, and source natural ingredients thoughtfully and responsibly. As mentioned before, they take a cruelty-free approach to their product development, campaigning against animal testing as well as backing human rights causes. The Body Shop also champions environmental sustainability through leveraging renewable energy and minimizing packaging waste.
3. Pixar
It’s hard to think of a Pixar film that was a flop. Movies like Toy Story, Up, and Finding Nemo are celebrated for their beautiful animation and delightful storytelling and Pixar’s unparalleled track record can be attributed in part to its strong company culture.
In a creative field, you rarely have an excellent first draft. But the whole point of a draft is to have something to work from. Pixar co-founder, Ed Catmull, realized this and encouraged getting comfortable sharing unfinished work. This discourages perfectionism and lessens any embarrassment employees might feel, allowing them to think more creatively.
Another important aspect of Pixar’s organizational culture is promoting collaboration and teamwork. Catmull recommends knocking down department silos as red tape stifles creativity and limits communication, putting a damper on quality. Instead, Pixar ran daily meetings called “dailies” that provided channels for regular feedback and established “brain trusts” of directors and other leaders who pushed movie teams towards creative excellence.
4. Google
Google’s “mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Besides the fact that Googlers have the company’s vision memorized, this lofty goal resonates with employees and drives them forward. Google also sets itself apart in its now classic “ten things we know to be true” core values, which reinforce the concepts of doing good, working fast, and delivering excellent service.
Google’s mission is to foster sustainability at scale is progressing well 一 the company has been carbon neutral since 2007 and aims to be carbon-free by 2030. They also make a positive impact by funding technology projects that push us towards a greener future.
5. Zappos
Zappos believes that customer service, branding, and performance will fall into place with the right culture. Zappos also adopted a “Holacracy” policy in 2013, empowering employees to organize themselves and handle decision-making usually left to management.
The company is committed to its core values and lives them out every day. And these aren’t your typical company values. Instead, they consist of statements like “Create Fun and A Little Weirdness,” “Deliver WOW Through Service,” and “Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded.” Zappos believes in its way of doing business so much that it’s created Zappos Insights, a group that evangelizes Zappos’ culture worldwide.
6. Sky
Sky, a British broadcaster and telecommunications company, places a strong emphasis on respect and integrity—fostering a work environment that adheres to high ethical standards. Their core values highlight their commitment to creativity, customer focus, inclusivity, collaboration, fairness, and forward-thinking.
They have established employee networks to connect individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those dedicated to gender equity, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and parents and caregivers. In addition, Sky also has a network focused on having open dialogue about mental health and long-term illness.
Sky also runs a social impact program called Sky Up, which provides Internet access to individuals, partners with schools to inspire youth, and offers opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to pursue a fulfilling career in the media and technology sectors.
7. Spotify
Spotify has learned to embrace the uncertainty of the ever-evolving music industry while unlocking innovation in its employees, and this stems from their core values: innovative, sincere, passionate, collaborative, and playful. Besides organizing their core values in the form of a “Band Manifesto”, their careers webpage also refers to managers as those who lead the Band.
Spotify also uses a form of agile development, aptly called the Spotify Model, where they have autonomous teams of eight or less take responsibility for the end-to-end design and maintenance of one part of the Spotify ecosystem. They can make fast decisions without waiting on approval from higher-ups or other teams. These squads are nimble, making small releases to fail, learn, and improve fast.
8. Netflix
Netflix has created what they call an “amazing and unusual” culture to keep their stream of popular content going.
Some hallmarks of Netflix’s culture are its high expectations, candidness, and accountability. As Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer, puts it, Netflix has “a built-in expectation of high performance, radical honesty, and the motto ‘we’re not family.’” They hold employees to high standards, employing what’s called “keeper tests” in their review cycle to force managers to say whether they would fight to retain their direct reports.
For all its toughness, Netflix is also known for the flexibility and freedom it gives its employees. After all, one of their philosophies is “people over process.”
9. Telstra
Telstra is an Australian telecommunications company offering a comprehensive array of employee benefits, such as competitive salaries that are higher than the national average, on-the-job career mentorship, wellness programs, and initiatives in support of mental health, as well as work abroad programs for new graduates. With a dedicated Diversity Inclusion Lead on the team, Telstra is dedicated to building supportive and inclusive workplaces – including partnering with the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) to support Indigenous Australians with their digital careers.
Outside of the office, Telstra’s commitment to sustainability is evident in their support for local organizations and communities through various social responsibility initiatives. Those include disaster relief programs such as Satellite Cells on Wheels and Tech Savvy Seniors, which helps elderly Australians with digital literacy.
10. Atlassian
Atlassian, an Australian software company with a global presence, has built organizational culture led by openness, passion, teamwork, a commitment to sparking change, as well as putting the customer first. These thoughtfully defined values were designed to attract the right employees while repelling the wrong ones, and their value-driven approach to building good company culture has landed them on Great Place to Work Australia’s top 10 list of best places to work.
Being value driven doesn’t just affect company culture, but the approach shapes every aspect of Atlassian’s business including branding and product development. For example, the company’s products such as Jira, Trello, or Confluence, are designed to improve teamwork and collaboration, as well as breaking down silos.
The company also boasts a generous flexible work culture, allowing employees to work and live anywhere the company has offices—across 14 countries.
11. Workday
Workday’s organizational culture is rooted in the wellbeing of their employees, tending to a cohesive community, and having a collective growth mindset. With values centered around customer satisfaction, integrity, and fun—Workday aims to create a work environment where employees feel valued.
According to the company’s careers page, their organizational culture is described to be “healthy, employee-centric, collaborative, and inclusive” and employees can voice their opinions regularly by providing feedback through weekly surveys.
With a holistic approach to their benefits program, Workday offers perks related to work-life balance, emotional and mental wellbeing, as well as financial assistance.
12. HubSpot
Armed with the exceptional belief that company culture is a product, HubSpot says that they’re building two products – one for their customers and one for their employees. Their rationale is straightforward: Just as exceptional products draw customers in, a strong company culture will attract exceptional employees.
Some of the tenets of HubSpot’s culture code include favoring accountability and autonomy, being as transparent as possible, and taking long-term impact into account. Some of their benefits include encouraging their employees to pursue personal and professional growth through continuous learning, placing work-life balance at the forefront with flexible work schedules, as well as unlimited vacation days.
Start building the best company culture
These examples show that great company cultures take clarity of purpose and sustained effort — requiring engaged employees and leaders who make their colleagues feel seen and appreciated.
That’s where technology can help. Achievers Recognize and Achievers Listen support organizations that want to build exceptional culture. Achievers Recognize is a science-based recognition solution that empowers team members to provide social and monetary recognition anywhere, anytime.
Achievers Listen, which integrates with Recognize, is an employee engagement solution that gives employees a real voice. It provides easy-to-use anonymous feedback channels where team members can express how they truly feel about their work, and more.
In this article:
