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- A No Bull Podcast
- Accounting & Finance Expertise
- ACCOUNTING ADVISORY
- Advisory
- Alice Stephenson – Founder & CEO, Stephenson Law
- All News
- ALLSTARS EARLY CAREER PROGRAMMES
- APPRENTICES
- April Bembridge – Chief People Officer, Cooper Parry
- Are You Claiming The Right Amount? Gated
- AUDIT – WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
- Audit and Assurance
- AUDIT FOR AIM LISTED COMPANIES
- B CORP
- Bundle and Pricing Options
- BUSINESS SERVICES INSIGHTS
- BUSINESS STRUCTURING
- Business Support And Grants
- Business Tax
- CAPITAL ALLOWANCES
- CAPITAL GAINS TAX
- Careers – Our Roles
- Careers Contact Us
- Careers Trainees FAQs
- Charities
- Construction And Property
- Contact Thank You
- Contact Us
- COOKIE POLICY
- Cooper Parry Book Club
- Cooper Parry Event
- CORPORATE AUDIT
- Corporate Finance
- Corporate Finance – What Our Clients Say
- CORPORATE FINANCE DEALS
- Corporate Finance News & Insights
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Covid-19 Collaboration-news
- CP Futures
- CP Innovation
- CP INNOVATION – WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
- CP INNOVATION FULL PAGE. – DRAFT
- CP Tech 100
- CPERS: COOPER PARRY ENQUIRY RESOLUTION SERVICE
- Creative Tax Reliefs
- CULTURE
- DIVERSITY POLICY
- Early Stage To SME- WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
- Ecommerce
- Eddie Latham & PJ Scott – Co-founders, Velocity Commerce
- Education
- EMPLOYMENT TAX
- FAQS
- Financial Reporting
- Find Us
- Flexible ‘Finance Bench’
- Future Events
- Galahad Clark – Founder VivoBarefoot
- GLOBAL TALENT PROGRAMME
- GRADUATES
- HEALTHCARE INSIGHTS
- Helena Hills – Founder & CEO, TrueStart
- HIGH GROWTH LOW DOWN
- Homepage
- Homepage
- Hub CP
- HUB CP – Live Lounge
- HUB CP – Live Lounge Velocity Snippets
- HUB CP – Rob Law Trunki Snippets
- Hub CP 3
- HUB CP LEADERSHIP SERIES
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- HUB CP LOUNGE – PAUL SCHAFFER, PLUM PRODUCTS
- Hub CP Podcast
- HUB CP Thank You
- Hugo Tilmouth – Founder & CEO, The Up.co
- Impact Beyond Business
- Impact Beyond Business New template
- In Their Words
- In Their Words Retail
- INDIRECT TAX
- Inheritance Tax
- Intellectual Property & Patent Box
- INTERNATIONAL TAX
- Investment Calculator UK
- James Hyde – Founder & CEO, James and James
- Jay Richards & Cat Agostinho – Co-Founders, Imagen
- Justin Harling – CEO, CAE Technology Services
- LANDLORD
- LEGAL STUFF
- Let’s Stop Calling It R&D V2 Gated
- Life at cooper parry
- Lounge Underwear Webcast
- MAKING TAX DIGITAL
- Management Information and Reporting
- MANAGING AGENTS
- Manufacturing Tax and Advisory
- Marketing Thank You
- MID MARKET – WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
- Mid-Market
- New Hub CP
- New Hub CP Live Lounge
- Newsletter Form
- Newsletter Thank You
- NFP Webcasts And More
- Not For Profit Audit
- Operational Systems & Technology
- Our People
- Meet the Team
- Meet the Team Retail
- Our People – Big Business
- Our People – Board
- Our People – Business Tax
- Our People – Capital Allowances
- Our People – Corporate Finance
- Our People – CP Innovation
- Our People – Facilities & Wellbeing
- Our People – Leadership
- Our People – Marketing
- Our People – New Business Relationships
- Our People – Not for Profit
- Our People – Outsourcing
- Our People – Partners
- Our People – Pensions
- Our People – Personal Tax
- Our People – Service Charge
- Our People – Tech & High Growth
- Our People – Tech & Platforms
- Our People – Transaction Services
- Our People – Transaction Tax
- Our People – VAT
- Our People – Wealth
- Our People Audit
- Our People Team
- Our Why And Values
- Outsourcing
- OVERSEAS EXPANSION
- Past Events
- Paul Richardson – Executive Chairman, Gymshark
- Paul Turton – CEO, Pact Coffee
- PENSIONS AUDIT
- Personal Tax
- Personal Tax Compliance
- PLACEMENTS
- Preference Centre
- PRIVACY POLICY
- Private Equity Advisory
- PROPERTY AND LANDLORDS
- R&D Capital Allowances
- R&D Newsletter Thank You
- R&D Tax Credits Questionnaire: Are you eligible?
- Raise investment or debt
- Raising Finance
- Read All About It
- Rebelution 2
- Rebelution 2 Top Tips – Cooper Parry Corporate Finance
- Rebelution 2 Top Tips – Cooper Parry IT
- Rebelution 2 Top Tips – Cooper Parry Wealth
- Rebelution 2 Top Tips – CP Futures
- Rebelution 2 Top Tips – VAT & Brexit
- Research & Development Tax Credits
- Research And Development Tax Credits
- RESIDENCE & DOMICILE ADVICE
- Retail
- Retail Advisory
- Retail Tax
- Rob Law MBE – Founder, Trunki
- Scale Up & High Growth
- SECURITY POLICY
- Service Charge
- Service Test
- SETTING UP BUSINESS IN THE UK
- SHARE INCENTIVES AND REWARD
- Share incentives: Annual Reporting
- SHAREHOLDER TAX ADVICE
- Shaun Doak – CEO, React Group Plc
- Small Business
- SNAPSHOT
- Succession Planning
- Supporting start ups
- SUSTAINABILITY
- Tax – What our clients say
- TAX COMPLIANCE SERVICES
- Tax Services
- TAX SETTLEMENTS AND INVESTIGATIONS
- Tech & High Growth
- Tech & High Growth – What our clients say
- TEN STAGES TO INVESTMENT
- TEN STAGES TO SALE
- Test2
- This Is Us
- Tom and Tina Warner – Co-Founders, Warner’s Distillery
- Transaction Deals
- Transaction Services
- Transaction Services – What Our Clients Say
- TRANSACTION TAX
- TRANSFER PRICING
- Trusts and Estates
- UK support for International groups
- VAT SERVICES
- Virtual Bookkeeping
- Virtual FD
- Wealth
- Wealth- What Our Clients Say
- Website How To Guide
- Welcome to the CP Family
- What our clients say
- WORK EXPERIENCE
- XCP Sign Up
- Your Development
- Your Say
- Your Say Contact Us
Growth is great. You don’t need us to tell you that. It’s proof that your business efforts are going successfully, and it opens you up to a whole new world of opportunities and people.
But new people come with new personalities. New locations create new boundaries. And it can be hard to maintain the company culture that you’ve been nurturing all along.
Why is your company culture so important? It’s the one thing that makes your business unique. It’s your personality; the energy that’s helped your business get this far. And it’s something your competitors will never be able to replicate.
So, what can you do to maintain your company culture during rapid growth? Following our expansion into Birmingham and central London, we’ve counted down our 6 top tips.
Hire the right people
Your people are your most important asset, and their experience and qualifications mean zilch if they’re not the right cultural fit. But how do you know when someone is ticking the cultural boxes?
We love Chris Hill’s approach. He’s successfully engaged 1500 people across 26 locations as CEO of The New World Trading Company; making it into the Top 10 of The Sunday Times’ Best Companies to Work For list for three years running.
If your business was a person, what would their personality be like? Once you’ve established that, only hire people who share those traits and your values. Sure, it might take longer to find the perfect fit, but you’ll reap the rewards in the long term.
Tom & Tina Warner, the couple behind Fast Track 100 featured Warner’s Distillery, also emphasised the importance of hiring slow and firing fast when they joined us at our HUB CP event in October.
Tina said: “When you know it’s wrong, end it. Having the wrong people in the wrong roles can be damaging. Have the difficult conversation, don’t put it off.”
Keep your values centre stage
Clearly defining your purpose and your values was the first step in our How To Improve Employee Engagement guide, and here it is again. Why? Because we can’t stress how important and beneficial it is.
As you grow, every interviewee that arrives at your office should already know the values you stand for and the purpose that drives your business. So, start by defining values that you’re proud of, and then shout about them on your website and your social media channels.
Make them the spine of your business and keep reinforcing them as you expand into new locations. A placard on the wall in every office is a start, as is emphasis on your values during your induction process. But for true longevity and impact, you’ve got to live them and lead by example.
Look at each of your values and ask yourself what you’re doing to bring those words to life. Champion them. And unite your people in a common purpose. Here at Cooper Parry, we measure our people’s performance against our values as well as their results. It’s proved to be a great way of continually showing everyone how important our values are to us as a business, and it makes the vision they’re engaging to crystal-clear.
Communication
From humble beginnings in a cosy, close-knit office, to cross-border conversations in exotic tongues – growth at any scale puts business’s communication to the test.
Luckily, as our workplaces become a melting pot of five generations, we’ve got technology on our side. Let’s make sure we use it to its full potential, because creating an inspiring digital culture is the most effective way of keeping everyone in the loop, wherever they may be.
Cloud-based collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams work wonders. It’s got an in-built instant messaging feature and you can create group pages that are great for collaborating on projects. Conversations and shared documents exist in Teams, instead of multiple inboxes, meaning you’re always working on the latest version together, and you can do so from any location. All you need is an internet connection.
As we’ve expanded, we’ve used Microsoft Teams as our hub for news posts and business updates. It’s replaced all-user emails (yuck) with an interactive noticeboard that lets our people “like” content and share their thoughts and questions in the comments section. Communications are more two-way, everyone has a voice, and it’s less “Kind regards” and more cat GIFs (we know which one we prefer).
The integrated high-quality audio and video calls mean working together in real time has never been easier. And we even use Teams to live stream and record our monthly update get-togethers, so nobody misses out.
Frequent Feedback
Without feedback, improvements can’t be made. It was one of the key features in our article on What Really Motivates Employees, and it’s the key to learning, adapting and maintaining your company culture as you scale up.
Keeping regular feedback loops open connects you with your people. And it lets them know their thoughts and opinions matter, even when there are borders between you.
Your people in Location A will have different expectations, opinions and issues to those in Location B. And to make sure every success is celebrated, and every problem is dealt with swiftly, you need to be hearing from them regularly.
That’s why annual engagement surveys don’t work as a standalone feedback solution; there’s no continuity, and issues are left unaddressed and festering for months. The key lies in consistent engagement. We’ve opted for our weekly “How’s It Going?” happiness survey. It asks our people to rate their week from 1-10 and leave a comment about anything they’d like – anonymously if they please. It’s given us a platform to share successes and iron out any issues, pronto.
Designing your new culture canvas
Or your new environment, in plainer terms.
Whether you’re expanding into an office, a warehouse, a shop or otherwise, you’ve got a clean slate to give your people and your visitors a taste of what your business is all about. And whether you opt for quirky and playful, or classy and sophisticated, the design should reflect your culture, communicate your values and be optimised for the way your people work.
Whenever people walk through any of your doors, they should have the same first impression. They should feel the same aura. That’s when you’ve got your brand identity spot on, and that’s when your culture will carry across your locations.
Then, there’s the office design elements that can have a big impact on productivity, and we’ve covered them here.
Celebrate success
Celebrating your people’s achievements is an important part of maintaining your connection with them and your culture as you scale up. Build and spread a culture of recognition, where no success – big or small – goes unnoticed. Your people’s motivation and drive will skyrocket, because they know their hard work isn’t going unnoticed.
Again, as with feedback, you need these celebrations to be much more frequent than some end of year awards. This is something you need to plant inside your business from day one. Make it part of day-to-day life.
We’re not telling you to throw a party every week; shout-outs and other small, non-monetary awards have a telling effect. And they’re super easy to maintain and repeat in the long term.
This is another area The New World Trading Company are leading the way on. Their “Message in a Bottle” scheme gives their people the chance to send messages of appreciation and congratulations to each other. And because they’re delivered in tiny glass bottles, it ties in perfectly with their brand image and culture of exploration.
At Cooper Parry, we have Cheers for Peers, where our people can shout-out each other in digital or written form.
Your culture won’t grow by itself
Only a handful of large, multi-national companies are renowned for their company culture. And that’s because scaling up has the potential to strip your business of its close-knit, personal feel. But you don’t have to reminisce fondly over the good old days, when things were smaller and simpler. The fantastic culture you have now can grow, expand and evolve with you on your journey. You just need to put some thought into it.
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