Looking to improve your company’s culture? According to Forbes, 92% of companies said that improving their company’s culture would improve the value of the company. That’s right, in addition to boosting overall employee morale, culture can also increase revenue. Rev.io has had a fantastic culture since we started in 2002. As a leading provider of IoT and telecom billing software with several Best Places to Work and Top Workplaces awards under our belt, we’re sharing the secret sauce to cultivating culture the Rev.io way.
Companies often struggle with which department should lead the charge towards a strong company culture. The truth is, it begins with your leadership team and prioritizing business initiatives around your most important asset, your employees.
As a growing provider of billing software over the past 15 years, we’ve learned to develop an outstanding culture that promotes growth. Here are four ways you can start building a great company culture:
1. Culture Begins with Establishing A Mission & Values
At Rev.io, we believe that developing a strong organizational culture begins with defining your mission and company values. Our mission to help clients grow revenue efficiently, along with our vision to be the best billing software and back-office company in the world by providing innovative solutions and extraordinary service to our clients and end-users, together drive our goals and strategic initiatives.
However, the culture of our company (which drives the direction of our billing software) is really defined by our ACT TOP values:
- Achieving Extraordinary Results
- Caring for Employees, Clients, and the Community
- Take Responsibility and Act Like an Owner
- Transparent Leadership
- Opportunity to Make a Positive Difference
- Passion for Innovation
That being said, it’s not enough to stop there. Once you’ve created your mission and values, you’ll have to find ways to weave these into your daily meetings, calls, presentations, and employees’ lives.
Here are a few ways we promote our mission and values internally:
- We begin each meeting by reviewing the mission and values
- We share our values with prospective billing software clients during our first sales call
- We structure our monthly employee award around our values and ask our team to nominate peers who embody our values
- We develop strategic initiatives and goals around our mission and values
- We showcase our mission and values around our office (in conference rooms, in the lobby, and in the break room)
2. Foster Team Building While Giving Back
The Rev.io team devotes an entire day to community service as part of our commitment to the “Caring for Employees, Clients, and Community” value. On May 17th, all of our employees volunteered at MedShare, a local organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in underserved communities by sourcing and delivering surplus medical supplies and equipment to countries in need around the world. By taking time away from the business, Rev.io contributed to a great cause and fostered team building
Not sure what organization to get involved with? Sending a quick survey to your employees to find out if there are any groups or associations they’re passionate about is a great way strategy and gets others involved in the planning process!
3. Invest In Your Employees With Ongoing Training & Leadership Development
The future success of your organization depends on developing the next generation of leadership. Some of Rev.io’s rising leaders are selected to be a part of the Operational Leadership Team “OLT.” This team strengthens our ACT TOP values, collaborates cross-functionally to overcome challenges, and executes strategic initiatives.
In case you missed our Q&A with Rev.io’s Operational Leadership Team, it’s a great read! Establishing a group of up-and-coming individuals, similar to Rev.io’s OLT, gives your employees a chance to further their career, tackle new challenges, and grow their skill set.
Another idea for investing in your employees is establishing a cadence of leadership training. Every other Thursday morning Rev.io employees have a chance to get together to listen to a TED Talk or leadership podcast, discuss the content, share examples from their roles, and see how it applies to the business. In addition to taking the hour to listen to leadership practices, this also gives our team a chance to network with leaders in the organization and other departments. This time is invaluable to the Rev.io Team, and is something that can be easily replicated at other companies!
Rev.io’s leaders understand the importance of developing our people and we set aside a percentage of our budget for local networking events. Pay for your employees to attend training conferences and allow them to participate in opportunities to grow their career. Not only will your business benefit from investing in your employees’ experiences, you’ll also build a culture of loyalty and reduce turnover.
4. Build A Culture That You Would Want To Join
The last point here is the most simple but often overlooked. In the words of Kevin Elko, our 2017 Client Summit keynote speaker, “this is about people.” We get it, your company has lofty goals, limited resources, and revenue targets to meet. We do too! That being said, the employees’ expectations of a company are changing and it’s important that your company adapts to those changes. It’s one word – flexibility. Providing your employees with flexibility around schedule, office environment, and work from home days will create a more loyal and productive workforce.
We’ve made it easy for our employees to work remotely and after-hours with video-conferencing applications and collaboration tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Slack. In the technology world we live in today, most of your employees can work anywhere with internet access. Having a flexible work environment shows compassion for your employees, some of who may have long commutes, young kids getting out of school early, or spouses with crazy schedules. When your employees feel valued, they feel a sense of self-accountability and go above and beyond for the company.
Equally as important as flexibility, is designing an office environment that represents the culture. Walking into an office and instantly feeling the energy of the organization helps with recruiting, sales meetings, and even investors.
Here are several no-cost or low-cost office ideas, taken directly from Rev.io’s HQ:
- Dress-down code – leave that suit and tie at home folks (you can even wear shorts and flip-flops)!
- Ping-pong table – cross-department tournaments anyone?
- Standing desk room – turn a conference room or empty office into a “quiet room” of standing desks and you’ll be shocked by how many people use it!
- Lounge room – create a room where employees can get away from their desk and get their creative ideas flowing.
- Communal library – bring in those books that you love but you’ve already read and share them with the team!
- Book club – read a book together and meet once a week (during a BYO-lunch meeting) to discuss each chapter.
Creating a great culture is all about establishing an organizational focus (mission and values), embodying your values, investing in your people, embracing flexibility, and aligning your office space to your culture.
Ready to join our fast-growing company? Contact Rev.io to learn more about our telecom billing platform! Or, learn more about the Rev.io culture for more employee benefits and our jobs page for open positions. We’d love to hear from you!