When my wife and I moved to Austin ten years ago, we were completely jobless (and during the recession, no less — would not recommend). I was eager to find the best place to work in the wake of the tech boom happening in the city. I quickly found, especially at that moment in time, that doing a quick search for “best place to work” netted results that led to a few common factors around the type of culture at each workplace: unlimited PTO, snacks and lunches in-house, game rooms, and an open seating arrangement with a sea of the now extinct Thunderbolt monitors, as far as the eye could see. All clear priorities for a young job hunter, obviously.
Fun company perks and creative office spaces were quite often “the reason” these places were seen as the best places to work. People and work/life balance were usually mentioned, despite being fairly subjective metrics. It seemed it almost didn’t matter the type of work the company did, as long as there was entertainment and options to keep people fed. These benefits do contribute to the culture on some level, as they show that a company wants to promote a particular workplace lifestyle. They demonstrate that leadership is willing to invest in this surface-level dimension of “company culture” to compete for talent, sure. But none of these benefits speak to the core of who a company is.
I’ve been fortunate enough to experience both highs and lows with various companies, both in leadership and non-leadership capacities over the past decade. And in every instance, no matter how unique, I’ve found one common thread.
> Culture, however you may define it, drives a company’s successes and its failures.
Culture is present in every element of the work a company delivers. It brings purpose to people’s day-to-day. It’s why you go to particular grocery stores or restaurants, and why you buy from the brands you do. Their culture shines through their service and products. Culture is also the reason that employees remain engaged past the honeymoon phase with their organization — or don’t. New jobs really are a lot like relationships; they’re new, exciting, and a bit scary. New opportunities allow people to become re-engaged in their career, take new risks they may not have been comfortable taking previously, and seize opportunities to develop professionally.
Average employee tenure is around 4 to 5 years at a given company, with respect to differences as a function of an employee’s age group. The 25–34 age range is where things get interesting, as average employee tenure drops to around 3 years. This is a crucial stage in an individual’s career. They are typically hungry for more opportunities, in search of growth (at times, faster than an organization can allow them), and are willing to risk changing companies to achieve it. This poses a new question: How can your organization’s culture influence your talent, regardless of an employee’s career stage, to remain engaged?
Throughout various experiences I’ve witnessed in my own career, I’ve learned some very valuable and tangible lessons. My hope and goal is to bring wisdom from lessons learned to Accomplice, my current organization, as we experience our own major changes as a team. The below is meant to provide, in the spirit of transparency, what Accomplice is currently experiencing and how we’re approaching the cultural evolution in our company.
Separation and unification.
Over the last few years, Accomplice has experienced some big and amazing shifts. At one point, the Accomplice brand family was comprised of four separate brands: the experience design firm named Accomplice was just one of them. Our design group, much younger in its existence and formally referenced at the beginning as ‘Accomplice’, is based in Austin. We also have a diverse team of remote folks, mostly consisting of talented engineers from a founder’s preexisting development company. And Design and Manufacturing, our experiential design and fabrication group acquisition, are also local to Austin, but physically sit in a different office from the design group (despite being located in the same building).
The good news is that there are so many experiences, capabilities, and ways of working that bring our talented and capable team together as one.
Diversity and identity.
My current role at Accomplice is Head of Studio. Similar to a role I’ve held previously prior to joining Accomplice, my job is largely focused on our people. Leading a diverse group of talented and driven folks like ours — all from various backgrounds, companies, values, and cultures — has a lot of benefits that also come with many challenges. And who you are — whether in your logo, tagline, or even the reason you originally joined a company — can be very hard to manage when change is introduced.
But that challenge is exciting to me. Culture, like religion or politics, won’t always work for everyone. If your company introduces change, there is always a risk that people will leave. But new opportunities will grow, too. And as we continue to evolve, I’m excited to implement the following to promote a healthy culture of evolution of which our teams will be proud, and will define what it means to work at Accomplice.
Feedback.
One of the hardest aspects of running any business. Not gathering it (although I’ve still seen that part flail at times), but rather, taking action as a result of it. Employees should be open to receiving and responding to feedback on their performance, but creating opportunities for everyone to provide feedback to leadership are just as important. There are a variety of ways to do this: annual surveys, quick engagement questions for project teams that can be executed on platforms like Slack, the list goes on. But at a minimum, everyone in your organization needs a method for providing transparent, anonymous feedback about the place they work. It’s where they spend the majority of their day — they’re sure to have thoughts. However, it’s equally as important to ensure there is a process in place to respond to this feedback in meaningful ways that the full company is aware of.
Goals and accountability.
Every individual — including all departments, the leadership team, and the company as a whole — should have goals. I know I know. I can feel the eye-rolls from here. But hear me out.
Typically, individuals have performance goals. Maybe departments do, and perhaps leadership does. But what I’ve seen missing most in each of these examples is a lack of accountability. Mentors or managers should ensure their teams set goals, and measure actions against them in combination with your company’s values. Leaders should identify opportunities to share their goals and the progress made in each to the company. They can be quarterly, annual, it doesn’t really matter — as long as you are transparent in the progress benchmarks of the large issues you are trying to solve. Ideally, these goals come from the feedback you are already receiving, either at the individual or the company level.
Hire and fire by your values.
Your values, regardless of your position in your organization, should be clear and understood by your teams. They should be built into your hiring process and part of every employee’s performance assessment, in whatever way your organization carries them out. If your values are not measurable, make them measurable. Whoever is leading a team and is responsible for those people needs to ensure they have the right person in the right role. Using your values as a guidepost helps support success in this area.
Leading with values is necessary for all levels within your organization.
The takeaway?
Ultimately, our goal is to show a culture of evolution, where we place value on our people, and how we can collectively continue to make Accomplice a great place to work. Our culture should be one that doesn’t remain stagnant, but is one of constant improvement. I wish I could say I’ve done this well all the time, and that I’ve seen it executed perfectly by the leaders I’ve worked with before — but that is definitely not the case. And attuning your culture perfectly won’t keep everyone. There are always shinier companies, better pay, and other dimensions of the workplace that can attract your talent elsewhere. No one is safe from it: this can happen no matter how positive the company’s benefits and culture are.
But the legacy of your culture, and showing your company that the culture can and will evolve, will continue to bring new talent in, and retain those you have, so take care to ensure your organization’s culture gets the attention it needs to bring success across the board.
A Culture of Evolution was originally published in accpl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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