"Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first."
-Simon Sinek​
A strong culture supports your strategy
An organization's culture is defined by the shared beliefs and values established by leaders, which are then communicated and reinforced by various methods, ultimately shaping employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding. Organizational culture sets the context for everything your business does.
Why Develop a Strong Culture?
The key to a successful organization is to have a culture based on a strongly held and widely shared set of beliefs that are supported by strategy and structure.
The benefits of a strong organizational culture are:
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1) Employees know how top management wants them to respond to any situation.
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2) Employees believe that the expected response is the proper one.
3) Employees know that they will be rewarded for demonstrating the organization's values.
Reinforce your Strategy
Strong Foundation
When you start a company, you begin with your beliefs and experiences. It is important to build a foundation with these core principles in mind. To accomplish this, you need first to understand the "why" of your operation. Whom does your business serve? Whatever your answer is, it should be authentic, inspirational, and aspirational.
Fundamental Pillars
The pillars of your culture are commonly shared values. You must have a common set of values, which are your company’s principles, and a common set of standards which will measure how your principles are being upheld.
Workplace Culture
Workplace culture is the character and personality of your organization. The organization’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors and attitudes are all part of it and determine the environment that you create for your employees.
Communication
Effective communication about your organization’s foundation and pillars is the keystone to your organizational culture success. Everyone at your company must speak the same language. The sense of having shared visions and goals, will shift your employees' mindset to a more collaborative and team oriented approach for the ultimate success of your restaurant.
Leading by example
Leaders need to lead by example in order for employees to follow suit. It all starts from the top. Every leader needs to internally and externally reflect the company’s values and be its strongest ambassadors. This can only be achieved with your managers being at the forefront of your training program .
Hiring
Hiring the right people who fit with your organization’s ideologies is fundamental. A wrong hire can be costly. A strong culture fit increases the likelihood that a person will be able to conform and adapt to the core values and collective behaviors that make up an organization.