If your business is to grow and prosper in the long term, then you’ll need to get recruitment right. Bringing the right talent into your organisation
If your business is to grow and prosper in the long term, then you’ll need to get recruitment right. Bringing the right talent into your organisation can drive up standards. Not only will these individuals make their own valuable contributions; they’ll also bring out the best from their colleagues.
Finding and retaining high-quality candidates is often a matter of creating the right culture. The best recruits will have their pick of places to work, and, if you want to tempt them, you’ll need to offer a workplace that meets their expectations.
Why Workplace Culture Matters in 2025
Workplace culture is a fantastic means of differentiating one business from its competitors. While you might not be able to offer a more generous pay packet, or expensive perks, it’s always possible to make your culture more appealing.
What this means will tend to depend on the nature of the work you’re doing. Some workers will want to contribute from home for part of the week. Others might appreciate wellbeing programs, an on-site gym, or even a certain kind of office layout.
Most important, however, are the ethos and values of the company, and the way that these things inform the behaviour of management. If a worker is pleasantly surprised by the way that they’re treated, then they’ll be more likely to stay around.
Practical Steps to Build a Culture Employees Value
Creating a positive workplace culture is often a simple matter of identifying what that culture looks like, and implementing strategies to push your organisation in the required direction. You might set out your values on paper, and communicate them widely. This will give every member of the team a standard to which they can hold themselves, and others.
It’s particularly important that good performance, as measured by the values you’ve set out, is recognised. This recognition might take the form of a bonus, a special perk, or a simple ‘well done’. For example, Cisco has implemented a formal system, called ‘Connected Recognition’, via which employees can publicly recognise the performance of their colleagues. Schemes like this can make it much easier for companies to stand out, and retain the staff that really make a difference to overall performance.
Linking Culture to Recruitment Success
In certain sectors, like Accountancy and Finance, demand for quality staff is high. This means that culture can make a crucial difference when you’re looking to recruit.
Recent polling indicates that almost four-fifths of recruits consider a company’s culture ‘extremely important’. When shaping your company’s culture, however, you’ll want to think not just about what the average recruit will be looking for, but about the values that might be important to the people you’re looking for.
