Professionalism has a whole new meaning today. It may have a new look and feel compared to past times, but it still resides as a key component of a successful culture. Today’s contemporary casual culture is the result of moving past formal dress codes and rigid hourly schedules towards merit-based reward systems. This works because companies have learned that those formalities aren’t what make a company succeed. Companies succeed when the team members are passionate about learning, growing, and winning together. In our culture, we value the freedom to be casual and candid. We’re focused on positive attitudes and noticeable results.
On our team, we build success around motivated individuals. We feel that the most effective way to motivate individuals is to encourage them to be creative and communicate ideas.
We like to keep it loose, with casual schedules and open communication lines. We foster positive, professional attitudes to keep us motivated and gratified, as well as focused and productive.
A few of our team members enjoying the view during our last strategic planning retreat
How do we maintain professional standards with a casual culture?
· Camaraderie-We spend time together as a team and develop a fellowship.
· Strengths and Weaknesses-Leveraging each others strengths and weaknesses helps us to utilize the strengths we have, and grow in areas that we are weak.
· Accountability-Our team members hold each other accountable so we can stay focused
· Setting Expectations-By communicating what is expected, our team members understand the goal and what their role is.
Maintaining this culture has helped us to realize many benefits, such as:
· Recruiting-Our modern-day culture is attractive to the type of professional team members we want to recruit.
· Loyalty-Keeping our team members fulfilled helps us to retain top-notch talent.
· Job Satisfaction-Our team members are rewarded with a sense of pride from knowing they were able to contribute to our success by contributing their creativity to our solutions and strategies.
· Less Stress-Our casual culture allows team members to focus on what’s important, and at the end of the day that results in more rewarding output and less negative stress.
We keep our culture casual because it removes the distractions of a rigid bureaucracy. Without those distractions, we’re able to focus on the enjoyment and satisfaction of owning our work and delivering solid quality results.
On our team there are no individual winners or losers. We all succeed together, or we all fail together.
