Brand culture, or company culture, is where a brand “lives” its own values. Basically, what goes on within flows out.
Fostering great, on-brand corporate culture is a huge step toward avoiding this problem. That means more than just saying what it is you believe in. It means enacting it every single day.
What is brand culture?
You know those moments where something about a company’s culture bubbles to the surface in news reports and works in total opposition to what you thought you knew about the brand?
Uber, for instance, purports to be a brand that connects people, facilitates travel and therefore experience, and innovation. So it’s jarring when you hear about discrimination against female engineers, safety concerns with drivers and vetting, and practices that can disadvantage their employees trying to make a living.
How do I know what our culture is?
Take a moment to list — yourself and your staff — what drives their work. What motivates them? Why do they come into work each day? Answers could vary from “well, I have bills” to “I really believe in our mission” to “I have the freedom to create” to “I need to achieve and I can do so here”.
Once you understand the broad sense of worker motivation, you should have a clear basis to understand what drives your workplace. Once you understand the why, you can clearly observe the how. Do your employees procrastinate, are they achievers who are driven to complete projects ahead of time? Is there a mismatch in that they want to excel but are bogged down by workload?
These two things will give you a pulse-check of how your workplace does what it does.
What is Branding For The People’s brand culture?
In the spirit of our new Brand Promise, we’re taking steps to revise our culture. Our strategy defines this as one that’s inclusive, collaborative, and creative where employees are empowered, challenged, and truly recognized for high performance. Not just at the executive level — it’s important this comes from all levels of our culture to really create a thriving ecosystem.
