Company culture is a determining factor in everything from employee satisfaction and productivity to the success and longevity of your business. Knowing how to communicate your company culture to prospective employees is the first step in ensuring you hire the most fitting people for your team.
Unfortunately, many employers add cliches and overused phrases to their job postings such as “we’re like a family” and “we value teamwork and collaboration”. These phrases are essentially void of meaning at this point and can be a red flag to applicants.
Check out the following three tips on how to effectively communicate your company culture without using outdated platitudes.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
A generic description of your company’s culture doesn’t give great insight into what it’s actually like to work there. You might want to share that you have a very supportive and creative company culture that celebrates people that think outside of the box, but what does this look like?
It can be helpful to offer examples to back up what you’re saying. Ex: “To support our employees and foster their great ideas, we have weekly brainstorming hours in which anyone can share their suggestions (no matter how big or small) on how to improve the company.”
You’ll still have to use words to describe your actions, but you get the idea.
Ask for Insight From Current Employees
You might have a vision of what you’d like your company culture to consist of, but the reality of the situation might differ. This isn’t automatically a bad thing.
Getting insight from current employees and team members can help you describe your company culture more accurately. Additionally, this can help you make improvements and reduce the gap between your ideal company culture and the actual one.
Want to go the extra mile when describing company culture in a job posting? Include short testimonials from the employees themselves about what it’s like to work at your company.
Don’t Try To Fake Anything
Last but certainly not least, be completely honest. Not every company has an incredibly close-knit “family” culture, and that’s more than okay, because not every employee is attracted to that.
If you care about maintaining a culture of professionalism and straightforwardness and encourage people to leave their personal issues at the door, then be sure to communicate that. Only people that prefer separating their home-life from their work-life will be interested in the position, which ensures that you end up with the candidates you wanted in the first place.
In Review
To attract the best-fitting candidates for a position, remember to do the following in your job postings: Give applicants a better idea of how they will experience your company culture on a day-to-day basis by describing your actions as a company instead of using empty words. Get an unbiased look into your company culture by asking your current employees, and then share their perspectives. Finally, no matter what your company culture is, be honest about it!
