With the popularisation of hybrid-working, accessing the best talent for your organisation has never been easier. Recruitment should be easy! Yet, businesses are still struggling to attract applicants to their job adverts.
Why? More than 50,000 tech start-ups were incorporated in the UK alone in 2023, making it incredibly difficult to stand out from the crowd.
Your tech company culture is your differentiator. It can influence a candidate’s thinking and be the reason why they choose your business over another. Keep reading to find out how to shape a positive tech company culture in 2024.
Why is company culture important?
In an environment where most tech companies claim to be “innovative” and “disruptive”, a company culture can truly set your business apart. A distinctive, positive culture can make an organisation more appealing to potential and current employees. It can be a game-changer in attracting new talent to your team.
Company culture also directly impacts employee retention. Data from SHRM reveals that 90% of employees who rate their company culture as “poor” have considered quitting their role. Losing employees is costly, so ensuring they’re bought in from the start is key to growing your organisation.
How to create a positive company culture
There are three key aspects to consider when crafting and embedding your company culture. These are:
- Define your mission and purpose
- Live the culture
- Transparency throughout the hiring process
Find out more on each below.
Define your mission and purpose
When you first launched your business, you would have set out a clear mission statement – the summary of your aims and values as a business. This mission should be reflected in your company culture.
You can achieve this by ensuring it always influences every decision made as a company. Placing purpose at the heart of everything you do ensures that your team clearly understands what you’re trying to achieve. Plus, it encourages them to work as a collective to achieve your overall goal. Or, as some would say, live the culture of the business.
Living the culture
People talk a lot about “living and breathing the company culture”, but what does that really mean?
It’s all about authenticity.
We’ve recently worked with a HealthTech company that specialised in the mental health space. During the interview process, it became really clear to the candidates that the business lives and breathes what they do in the community. The interviewer mentioned their own reasonings for joining the business, sharing their experiences with their mental health. This honesty meant that the successful candidate felt very comfortable straight away.
While this example demonstrates a level of vulnerability that shouldn’t be required, it does reveal a valuable lesson. It’s incredibly important to show that your business genuinely cares about the industry it operates in. Every market is becoming increasingly crowded and candidates want to join a business that really make a difference.
Transparency throughout the hiring process
If you position your company as something it isn’t, you’re going to lose people. That’s why it’s important to be as transparent as possible throughout the interview process.
Rather than trying to be the same as everyone else, businesses should embrace and be proud of their differences. Every company has it’s positive and negative traits for candidates depending on what they’re looking for at this stage in their career.
Not every candidate wants to work in a business that has a relaxed environment, for example, some candidates thrive in a fast-paced office. If that’s the reality of your workplace, you should be open and honest about this fact. Specialist recruiters are able to match the culture of an organisation with prospective candidates.
Challenges in creating a positive company culture
Here are some of the challenges you may encounter whilst creating a positive company culture and how to solve them:
- Team alignment: Lots of start-ups rely on the Founder’s story when first hiring but this can be tricky as you grow. It’s important for your entire team to be aligned on your culture, especially as individuals will mostly only interact with certain employees.
- Interviews: To ensure that a candidate is joining a business, and not a person, it’s important to ensure that they meet various contacts throughout the interview process.
For tech recruitment support, get in touch with NearTech Search
At NearTech Search, we understand the power that your company culture holds. Our recruiters place culture at the heart of each of our talent searches. For effective support in growing your business, get in touch today!
