15 Company Culture Examples that Deserve Your Attention

The most successful corporate cultures focus on employees.

A company’s philosophy and actions define its culture. You can build a winning culture in many ways, and all of them are people-centric. A successful corporate culture increases productivity, decreases turnover and improves employees’ lives. Many companies do it well, but the following 15 organizations exemplify how to build and sustain a people-oriented culture.

Help employees grow personally as well as at work.

Zoom, a video teleconferencing company, integrates employees’ personal and professional lives. Its goal is to make its employees happy. Giving K-12 teachers free access to Zoom’s online meeting service during the coronavirus crisis exemplifies its values.

The digital music service Spotify has a unique organizational structure that provides both accountability and independence. Personal hobby groups connect with its staff members at all levels and functions. Spotify’s HR “social team” takes care of scheduling group interactions.

“If your employees are happier, and growing, and feeling supported…doesn’t that make them better employees?”

Glassdoor lists LinkedIn, the social media site for professionals, as a great place to work, in spite of employee issues at similar companies. The reason is LinkedIn’s commitment to its employees’ growth, both professionally and personally. Its other principles, including collaboration and humor, help the company thrive.

Establish strong corporate values that support your community and the larger society – and live them.

The outdoor clothing and gear company, Patagonia, maintains a well-known, strong corporate culture. Famed for its rigorous sourcing policies and its lauded stance of prioritizing the environment over profits, Patagonia has always respected its individual employees and enabled flexible schedules. Its culture spurs employee and customer loyalty.

Clif Bar & Company, a long-time supporter of environmentally and socially responsible activity, lives its mission. The organic food and drink company’s growth is a product of its belief in the community of its staff.

“Clif Bar & Company…figured out…that companies are communities.”

The “neighborhood grocery store” chain Trader Joe’s follows core values worth emulating. Its values incorporate Kaizen – continual improvement at the individual level – and eschews formal budgeting. This rejection of “bureaucracy” and a focus beyond profit allows the staff to vest in personal and organizational goals.

Hire people who align with your values to ensure engaged, contented employees and customers.

Employee perks exemplify Intuit’s “design for delight” or “D4D” motto. The company, which created Turbotax and Quickbooks, delights its customers and employees to fulfill its goal of having a win-win culture.

Hubspot, the marketing, sales and service software company, has a “no door policy,” which may be one reason Glassdoor rates it as a best place to work. Hubspot builds its business with quality products, consciousness and “soul,” and its leaders welcome input from everyone in the company.

“You matter, and we’re all in this together.” ”

Zappos, which started by selling shoes online, focuses on hiring people who embody its “powered by service” ethos. Many companies have followed Zappos’s lead, but it was the first to take internet sales back to old-school, customer-focused service. This philosophy empowers its staff members to do whatever is necessary for customer happiness.

Since its creation, the wholesale club Costco has bucked many established ideas. It started by offering fewer products and by cross-training staff. Costco suffers only about 10% of the normal retail employee turnover rate.

Let creativity thrive.

Mailchimp, a marketing platform, hires people who want to explore new possibilities and don’t fear failure. Its culture encourages creativity, even as the company grows. Its “Chief Cultural Officer” makes sure this approach prevails.

Pixar Animation Studio’s basic principles embrace the “ambiguity” that fuels transformation. By providing hut-like individual work areas, Pixar pushes colleagues to work together to create. Employees review unfinished work with their teammates.

“If you aspire to creativity, be creative in everything you do.”

Wistia’s culture supports creativity. The company, which hosts business videos, understands that creativity requires more than money. It takes risks when hiring people, when focusing teams on meeting individual members’ needs and when examining its options, by considering what another company would do.

Autonomy and transparency help employees feel connected.

Culture Amp, which helps other firms understand and define their cultures, believes that a having “Culture First” organization leads to increased profits. Culture Amp’s culture encourages employee autonomy.

Buffer, a social media company with a dispersed team, works to keep its culture alive. Its culture relies on Slack, the collaborative software, to bring people together for work or for talks around the virtual “water cooler.” As co-founder Leo Widrich believes, a good culture helps a firm operate based on its principles.