Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.

Company culture is a set of shared values, beliefs and practices. Having clear company values and maintaining inviting company culture are more important than business ideas, strategies or goals.

Company culture is related to company vision. Company vision is a statement about what the company believes in and aims to do. Company culture is a set of shared values and shared ways of doing something with passion.

"What" changes, but "why" does not. Business goals exist only for the revenue they produce, they will change. On the other hand, company values are what the company stands for and should not change. Recruiting people according to company values and culture helps you to form a sturdy company structure with like-minded individuals that will not leave even if your whole line of business changes.

Money is a bad motivator in the long run. Talented people look for companies with a good company culture and similar company values to their personal values. Mediocre and poor employees only care about the salary. This should be one of the most important point to consider out for when recruiting new people, like recruiting developers.

The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. People can be independent and autonomous without the watchful eye of the management.

Each employee should know the company values. The whole company should also follow those values, even the management. If company values are just decided, placed online and then forgotten, they are right next to useless.

Only hire people that fit into the company culture. Even if you find a great employee, it does not help if he does not feel empowered to work for you.

40 years old single parent does not most likely fit in with a company full of 20 year-something students. Sad but true.

The values must have value (!). All company's products and actions must be consistent with the company values. Otherwise you seem inconsistent and superficial.

If your company value is environmental friendliness, you should be extra careful not to use any environmental toxins is your manufacturing.

Creating company values: You can create core values if you have more than a few employees.

• Get people together.
• Show a few examples from other companies; these are then banned.
• Make each person write 5 values this company has and are unique.
• Group similar values together to higher level value.
• Remove generic values e.g. "be nice", "do not lie", "arrive to work".
• Leave 10 semi-finalists.
• Ask everybody to vote for top 3.
• Get 5 most voted ones and create an acronym.

Example Company Values

Apple:

• simplicity
• easy of use
• user-focused
• fun & humor
• innovative
• memorable & different
• personalized
• coherent

Zappos:

• Deliver WOW through service.
• Embrace and drive change.
• Create fun and a little weirdness.
• Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
• Pursue growth and learning.
• Build open and honest relationships with communication.
• Build a positive team and family spirit.
• Do more with less.
• Be passionate and determined.
• Be humble.

Google:

• Focus on the user and all else will follow.
• It is best to do one thing really, really well.
• Fast is better than slow.
• Democracy on the web works.
• You do not need to be at your desk to need an answer.
• You can make money without doing evil.
• There’s always more information out there.
• The need for information crosses all borders.
• You can be serious without a suit.
• Great just isn’t good enough.

Twilio:

• Live the spirit of challenge.
• Empower others.
• Start with why.
• Create experiences.
• No shenanigans.
• Be humble.
• Think at scale.
• Draw the owl.
• Be frugal.

Codetunes:

• Teamwork works better than individual agents.
• Communication is one of our main concerns.
• Knowledge sharing is weekly activity.
• Decisions should be done as quickly as possible.
• Personality over system so no dress code.
• Learning should be loved activity.
• Office is your main work environment, even if you can work remotely.
• Wrosclaw is a beautiful city.

Coca-Cola:

• Leadership: The courage to shape a better future.
• Collaboration: Leverage collective genius.
• Integrity: Be real.
• Accountability: If it is to be, it's up to me.
• Passion: Committed in heart and mind.
• Diversity: As inclusive as our brands.
• Quality: What we do, we do well.

Hubspot:

• We are manical about our mission and our metrics.
• We solve for the customer.
• We are radically transparent.
• We give ourselves the autonomy to be awesome.

Sources

• Don’t Fuck Up the Culture