With the U.S. unemployment rate falling to a 50-year low of 3.5%, businesses have ramped up their efforts to attract and retain employees in new ways. One such way business leaders have learned to recruit in this competitive market is to set their companies apart with a strong and supportive company culture.
Creating a positive workplace culture is not an easy task, but managers need to think about attributes like inclusion, transparency, and kindness when they forge physical and digital environments for their employees. Here are six incredibly successful companies of different sizes and types that have made workplace culture a priority and have been rewarded for it.
CB Insights
New York-based CB Insights, a market intelligence platform, has seen incredible growth during the past five years, expanding from 10 employees to more than 250 in 2019. The company prominently highlights its culture and often spotlights its “4 H’s” that the company lives by — helpful, humble, hungry and happy. In a move of radical transparency, CEO Anand Sanwal has a public-facing list of mistakes he has made, encouraging others to learn from where he went wrong and to experiment more.
Hubspot
Hubspot, one of the top platforms for marketing, sales and customer service in the U.S., also has attracted attention for its company culture. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company has published its informative Culture Code for anyone to see, and it has updated the document dozens of times in order to keep it current and thoughtful. The Code sets the tone for all current employees and what sorts of employees it seeks out. Highlights from the Culture Code include that the company should “share openly,” be “remarkably transparent,” “favor autonomy,” “dare to be different,” and “recognize that life is short.”
Indeed
Indeed, the world’s largest jobs site, has made great strides to promote a positive company culture. As a leader in delivering accurate information about companies, Austin-based Indeed has extra incentive to be transparent about its own workplace values. The company’s public page on Indeed includes reviews, salaries, photos and Q&A regarding the company. The page shows off attributes like inclusion, encouraging taking time off with Open PTO, and a volunteer and company match platform that gives employees a way to give back to their community. One innovative way the company shows off its values is encouraging employees to use the Instagram hashtag #insideindeed, which features more than 16,000 photos.
One such way business leaders have learned to recruit in this competitive market is to set their companies apart with a strong and supportive company culture.
Microsoft
As one of the world’s largest companies, Microsoft has a unique challenge — how to scale company culture across its massive workforce and across the globe. CEO Satya Nadella took over the company in 2014 and went to work resetting and rebuilding culture by first encouraging it to work well with other large companies instead of being insular. Besides its open-source approach, Microsoft is also known for its diversity, philanthropic efforts and workplace experimentation including testing a 4-day work week in Japan. These efforts have paid off, with Microsoft being rated as the No. 1 company in the world for Best Large Company Culture by Comparably in 2019.
Updater
New York-based Updater, a moving technology platform and app, has established itself as fun-loving startup that cares about its culture. The company has office games like pingpong and board games, a book club and work outings that happen both during and outside of work. It also loves dogs and lets people bring them into the office. On top of this, the company has adopted a unique interview process — a full-day interview with candidates interacting and learning with prospective teams. This system ensures for the best matches possible to the culture of the company and to fellow employees.
Zoom
When Denver-based video communications company Zoom went public in April 2019, much was made about the company’s profitability and its wildly successful IPO. But if you dig a little deeper, the company should also be known for its culture. The company has a team that is nicknamed “the happiness crew,” and that shows with the company being ranked No. 1 in the U.S. for happy employees in 2019 by Comparably. The company attributes employee satisfaction to “a fun yet productive culture, an open work environment, and highly competitive workplace benefits, including competitive pay, fitness reimbursement, unlimited time off, free meals, and monthly office parties.”
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