Is Company Culture Your Competitive Advantage In A Talent Shortage?
In this tightly fought candidate’s market, every employer is scrambling for their competitive edge – that secret saucy ingredient that makes them alluring to their ideal talent. What’s your company culture saying about you?
Company culture can be described as the lived expression of your mission, vision, values, and the way your employees ‘do things around here’. It exists independently of your desires. For many organisations, it simply exists. But be that as it may, culture can be consciously shaped with a strategic change process.
Here’s how company culture plays an important role in candidate attraction and employee retention to help you stand out as an employer of choice.
Why company culture is important for a competitive advantage
Who doesn’t want to stand out as an in-demand employer in a competitive talent market? While there are many elements of your organisation that are replicable, such as friendly customer service, high salaries, and generous perks, company culture is that wonderful thing that’s uniquely yours.
Your culture affects every interaction a candidate and employee has with you – the good and the bad. Strong cultures can motivate people to perform at their best. Strong cultures can inspire candidates to covet what you offer. Equally, poor culture can repel talent, creating some kind of nuclear wasteland where you’re avoided at all costs.
How culture helps candidate attraction
People want to work for an employer that enables them to perform at their best and live the kind of career-life that supports their physical and emotional needs.
Strong company cultures are a magnet for the right talent as much as they serve to repel the people unlikely to thrive there. Which means you can look forward to a better quality applicant pool, reducing poor hiring decisions and turnover down the track.
How culture impacts employee retention
It’s important to authentically communicate who you are and what you stand for during recruitment, so you’re able to establish and meet realistic expectations of life in your organisation, and mitigate the risk of dissatisfaction and resentment.
Employees report being happier when they’re in a healthy, values-aligned work culture that recognises their contribution. Strong company cultures can also create a sense of psychological safety, belonging, and purpose that your much adoring employees may find difficult to walk away from. The more companies are able to hire culture-fit employees, the more they can reasonably expect brand loyalty and retention to follow.
Connecting culture with candidate motivators
Just like that sourdough culture you started in the early days of the pandemic, company culture can sit stagnant, potentially morphing into a new (harmful) creature without your supervision and nourishment. Or you could actively feed that culture and create something more intentional, and watch it bubble with vitality.
If your company culture needs nurturing to better meet the needs of your modern, multi-generational workforce, consider strategies that enhance these top motivators:
- opportunities for employees to learn and upskill
- equal access to career growth and mobility
- opportunities to contribute to other projects and teams
- reward and recognition
- employee wellness and wellbeing.
Is company culture your competitive advantage?
A strong company culture can positively influence your ability to attract quality candidates and retain quality employees all year round. Keep your finger on your organisation’s culture pulse and be ready to step in and make strategic adjustments when needed to maintain your competitive advantage.