This is Exactly How to Cultivate Creativity in Your Company Culture

Company culture. Corporate culture. Employer brand. Culture was never something I paid attention to when applying for jobs. They only ever functioned as a way to facilitate a paycheck. It wasn’t until I started working at Red Branch Media that I understood the impact of culture in the office. Everything from our weekly Eatin’ Meetin’ complete with cheese and wine to our daily mid-afternoon walks to refresh creative juices changed the way I looked at “work.” As a Brancher, I would venture to say that part of the reason I enjoy what I do so much is because of the creativity cultivated in our office.

Where to begin…

Culture and employer brand are current buzzwords floating around in the world of recruiting and HR, but how many of these professionals see them as more than just a couple of HR words? The survey by Beyond.com and Millennial Branding shows that 43% of respondents said cultural fit was the single most determining factor in the hiring cycle. Despite this, however, the role of HR in employer branding is beginning to fall by the wayside as the department’s participation has declined 10% in the last 5 years. Truth is, it takes more than fluff and buzzwords to make new hires stay and employees engaged. Sara Pollock, Marketing Communications Manager at ClearCompany listed different types of company culture in their Performance Culture Quiz:

• The Go-Getters
• The Collaborators
• The Work-Life Balance Buds
• The Grindstone Gang
• The Busy Bees

Check out ClearCompany’s post here to see the full description of what each type of culture entails. Do one of these sound a lot like your team at work?

Tweet @ClearCompany and let them know about it!

Build Your Workforce Around Your Culture Type

I began at Red Branch Media as an intern. (Click here to see Sarah’s intern post!) When I applied, there wasn’t any fluff or buzzwords in the job descriptions to be found; just the cold, hard truth about the job. That’s how job descriptions should be – honest, complete, and SEO friendly. External expression of your internal company culture starts here. This is where candidates meet you for the first time… this is where the relationship between employer and potential employee begins.

First of all, candidates can’t find the position if they can’t search them. This is assuming your job descriptions are online – which they absolutely should be. Search Engine Optimization should be at the top of your job description requirements since want ads aren’t all that popular anymore… JobScience.com tells you exactly how to optimize them so the dream candidate can find their dream job:

“Go onto the site where you plan to list the job and do a search as if you were a candidate. If it’s a human resources position, you may want to use both ‘Human Resources’ in the title and job description as well as the abbreviation HR. Find common keywords and use these as well as synonyms to get the best visibility and search results.”

How will they see you…

Red Branch Media is almost exactly the kind of culture I thought I would be working in. It’s a fun, hard-working, creative atmosphere. However, employees at other places of work aren’t so lucky. The primary reason so many new hires fail is due to a misconception about the company culture. Unfortunately, that misconception is often not the applicant’s fault. A cohesive and well-developed job description will have a hand in determining a new hire’s success in the company. The job description has to have the same feel about it as the position it describes. Otherwise, you run the risk of having an office full of employees who aren’t engaged or happy in their positions.

I consider myself fortunate to be a part of a team that enforces hard work, creativity, and that exemplifies the culture I was made to believe it was. Yes, we take daily afternoon walks at 1 p.m., but that is to rejuvenate our creativity and to take a break from looking at computers. I never thought that saying, “you’re fired!” would be anything more than a joke or a line from a short-lived game show. I would count myself as one of the failed new hires if I was not aware of the culture.I enjoy my job, I’m engaged in the office because I wasn’t brought here under false pretenses. The job description Maren candidly provided aligned with the company culture and the kind of work that I would eventually do.

Do your candidates feel the same? Do you show them what it’s really like to be a part of your office team? Share with us in the comments.

Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.