What Does Company Culture Really Mean?
By Sam Orbaum of Woodhead Restaurant Group
Culture is the thing that makes a fantastic working environment, or a terrible one. It’s the interplay between people and purpose, attitude and ambition. It can feel abstract but we put a great deal of effort into making it tangible.
The idea is to have a group of talented people, who enjoy themselves, who are driven to excel together, who trust each other and the business, and who operate with accountability and support. How hard can that be?
I am Head of People at Woodhead Restaurant Group. That means it’s my pleasure and responsibility to play a part in trying to define and guide the great, amorphous and messy thing known as company culture. Over the last couple of years my understanding of what company culture is, how it can be defined, communicated, established and protected has been challenged. And this challenge has meant that my understanding has also been hugely enhanced. We are always learning, evolving, and scrutinising ourselves but we have found a method that works for us. I hope that in passing some of this learning on, it may benefit others.
What Is Culture?
Culture is a summation of collective ideals, behaviours and achievements. It’s how we think about the attitudes and values of different societies or people. To apply that to a business, you might want to begin with the following questions:
● What do you want to achieve?
● Why do you want to achieve it?
● How do you want to achieve it?
● Who do you want to achieve it with?
Answering these questions should help lead you toward your core values and desired culture. The way to then take your theory from an ideal to a reality is by making your approach collective – that means getting everyone in the business on board with what you are trying to achieve. Regardless of any noble intent, it is the values that are shared, exhibited and experienced by a company as a whole that constitute its culture.
Direct Your Culture
It’s important to have leaders with strong values. If they have strong values without large egos, even better. Culture starts at the top but is owned by everyone. In my view, prioritising company values over individual owners, head chefs or managers is the difference between institutional longevity and a cult of personality.
Directing culture is not straightforward. It’s certainly a case of guiding rather than demanding and, I’d argue, more about listening than telling. You must understand your team. We are constantly checking in with our team to see to what extent their experience matches up with our ideal culture. Without an awareness of the reality of your culture, how can you hope to affect it?
Before Christmas we sent out a survey to all our teams, focussing on training and wellbeing. The responses showed a strong appreciation for the training on offer, but there was less conviction in the responses regarding wellbeing. We could see from the comments that this was clearly an area of importance to our colleagues and so we started to explore a number of options to improve what we do.
There’s a misconception that perks equal culture. Meaningful perks are in fact a demonstration of the values at the core of your culture, not a replacement. We are now in the process of introducing private healthcare for the team, giving them access to 24/7 medical advice and expedited care, along with the peace of mind to know that they are covered financially for a range of medical emergencies. In essence, it is providing the means through which we believe we can now support our team to prioritise their wellbeing. While this is of course a significant development for our benefits package, the transparent, discursive process we went through to reach this point is arguably more indicative of a healthy culture than the result itself.
Establish Your Culture
When I took my job, I had an excited and wonderfully misguided notion that I’d act as a moral compass, working to defend the interests of our team. But ideally those interests don’t need to be defended – instead they should be supported through the generosity of thought of the company’s owners. Instead of defending, I’ve spent most of my time figuring out how to empower others across the business to show the same generosity of thought and action. Will and Daniel’s values of hospitality, excellence and trust can only define our culture if we live by them throughout each restaurant, in the kitchens and on the floor. The business is bursting with brilliantly talented managers and I have now come to see my task as creating systems and developing policy that allows them to demonstrate their brilliance in a consistent manner. Culture is directed by people and established through structure.
These structures can take the form of a carefully crafted induction process to help new starters hit the ground running, six-monthly appraisals for every employee, a playbook for how to handle absence or bereavement, clear disciplinary procedures and more. The point, again, is to develop a framework that extends beyond individuals and becomes a foundation upon which our team can continue to excel. As much as one good decision shows positive intent, it is consistency that results in clarity and fairness.
Communicate Your Culture
Nine out of ten times when I’m confronted with a problem, it all comes down to communication. Communication is at the core of two culture non-negotiables – trust and shared goals. Without these two things, you can’t move forward.
The people in your business are your most important communication tool. Having managers who lead by example, who are empowered to make decisions and who are supported in their decision-making allows every person in every team to manifest and spread your values. We commit a lot of time and resource to training talented chefs and managers to become talented leaders and communicators, then map out communications frameworks such as one-to-ones, group projects and management meetings to ensure that everyone at every level has a voice and is being heard.
We also want to be clear with our desired culture and expectations beyond our current team. In the current climate it can be tempting to hire anyone who is qualified and willing, but to maintain your culture it is vital to give candidates as realistic a picture of life within the business as possible, regardless of whether that might elicit a positive or negative response. If they don’t share your aims at the outset, it is better for both parties to acknowledge that sooner rather than later!
We take great joy in the unique personalities of our sites, but we share common aims and speak a common language. We developed Woodhead Restaurant Group as a unifying “brand” so that we could communicate to the world and (even more importantly) to everyone within our teams the shared values and opportunities that run throughout The Quality Chop House, The QCH Shop, Portland, Clipstone and Quality Wines. Whether you have six sites or more, or one small one, that clarity and openness will serve you well.
Defend Your Culture
What is and isn’t a threat? The lines can be drawn differently for each individual or company, and there are ways that you can guide with strength and conviction without becoming a dictatorship. We have a simple approach: we try to avoid a needlessly defensive reaction to someone or something who challenges the status quo – it’s important to me that we are open to discussion – but we engage swiftly with anything that will negatively impact the experience of our teams. We examine our culture intensely and defend it robustly. Often, the sooner you act, the less dramatic the action required.
Again, awareness and communication is key to how to effectively defend your business. It’s unrealistic to think that you will never be pulled away from your core values but it’s important to be willing to communicate the reasons for your decisions, and to understand the implications. For example, your culture could encompass both “excellence” amongst your team and “support” for colleagues. If, then, you find yourself short staffed, the time taken to find an excellent replacement could leave your team in need of support. Our approach in situations like this would be to discuss the options available, knowing that there may have to be compromise in one direction or the other, but prioritising agreement and maintaining the collaborative approach to how we operate. It’s ok to bend occasionally, as long as you know why you’re doing it and are honest and clear with everyone involved.
What’s the Point?
There’s a well known phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It’s a little blunt but demonstrates the value of culture to the health and longevity of your company. In order for something to happen, you have to facilitate the conditions for it to happen in. Rather than pitching culture and strategy as competing ideas, I’d question how you’d hope to achieve your strategic goals if your team are demotivated and moving in separate directions.
Strong culture isn’t about aimless happiness. It’s a collective sense of direction that can fuel ambition, accountability, achievements and more. It establishes trust and a sense of community that brings out the best in your team, both in terms of happiness and performance. Importantly, culture is constantly evolving. It’s organic and changeable, sometimes moving in the right direction and sometimes not. Our approach relies on continual internal questioning. It is an ongoing endeavour to balance this with strong brands and strong personalities but always a pleasure to know that we are doing all we can to bring out the best in our people.
