TIPS & RESOURCES

4 Companies With Great Company Cultures

We’ve talked a lot about improving company culture. From hiring rockstar employees to initiating corporate social responsibility initiatives, there are plenty of ways to do so. But it helps to have good examples, too. That way you can see how companies are putting this stuff into action and making it work. Today we’ll show you four companies with great company cultures!

Zappos

Zappos is one of the most dedicated companies when it comes to maintaining their company culture. So much so that they specifically hire based on an employee’s potential fit in that culture. They famously offer new hires $2,000 to quit after the first week of training if they decide the job isn’t for them. So, what else makes Zappos company culture so great? Here are just a few other things:

They have portions of the budget dedicated to team building and culture promotion. This shows employees that they aren’t all talk about their culture – they’re serious about building and maintaining it.
Each employee can give a $50 “Co-worker bonus award” each month to colleagues that feel deserve it.
They put their tech support in the middle of the cafeteria, instead of sticking it in the basement.
They consistently help the community through charity and corporate social responsibility initiatives.
All new employees spend their first four weeks in the call center, answering employee calls and getting familiar with the company.

Here are some lessons you can take from Zappos:

Consider creating your own budget for team building and culture promotion. Keep in mind all the benefits this can have for your business, including lowering the turnover rate, improving employee morale, and increasing employee productivity.
Implement a way for employees to reward their colleagues. This will help build camaraderie.
Consider how to arrange your departments within your office in a way that makes everybody feel like they play an important role in the company.
Google

We couldn’t make a list like this and not include Google. It’s famous for maintaining a great company culture that employees love to work in.And it’s been able to keep up that excellent culture even as its scaled to massive heights, which is perhaps even more impressive.Here are a few things that make Google’s company culture excellent:

It provides employees with awesome perks, like free haircuts, free meals, gyms and swimming pools, and even on-site physicians.
Their offices include nap pods to help employees relax and de-stress, as well as video games, foosball, and ping pong. In a high-stress job, they know it’s important to keep the environment as low-stress as possible.
Strong hiring and recruiting process that makes sure employees are the right fit.

Here are some lessons you can take from Google:

Add in a few perks that get employees excited about coming to work, and perhaps even raving to their friends about their work environment.
Spice up the office by adding some “fun” equipment, like ping pong tables and foosball.
Fine-tune your recruiting and hiring process.
Evernote

It’s everybody’s favorite tool – but you may not have known that it’s also home to a great company culture. Here are a couple of things that make the Evernote culture excellent:

An “Officer training program” which allows employees to “crash” 2 meetings each week and ask whatever questions they want (even in departments they don’t work in).
They hire people with strong communication skills, so employees are able to clearly articulate what they mean and work through problems.

Here are some lessons you can learn from Evernote:

Figure out a way to “pull back the curtain” and allow employees to see the inner-workings of other departments. This will give them a deeper understanding of the business and perhaps even foster some new ideas.
Focus more interview questions that reveal a potential hire’s communication skills.
Warby Parker

There’s a reason Warby Parker is known for their company culture. They focus on making it great. In fact, they have a whole team whose purpose is solely to improve company culture! Here are a few other things that make the Warby Parker culture great:

They’re always creating fun events so that employees have something to look forward to all year round.
They send random employees to lunch together to encourage collaboration among the staff.

Here are some lessons you can learn from Warby Parker:

Devote more resources to improving company culture.
Brainstorm fun events and outings to get employees excited and energized.

Wrapping Up Companies with Great Company Cultures…

A great company culture will help you recruit better employees, improve productivity, and lead to a lower turnover rate. So, it’s worth investing the resources to improve your culture. But, like with most things, it’s far easier to do this if you have some great examples to go by. So, use these companies as examples of how you can improve your culture. To recap, here are 4 companies with great company cultures: