“My business would be so much easier to run if I didn’t have to employ people!” Anon.
Every entrepreneur has to deal with people issues while growing a successful business. Your people are central to your success, and the culture of your business must reflect this so you can nurture your people.
But here’s the challenge; how do you retain your core values, while ensuring your business is full of the right people, in the right seats, with the right attitude and shared goals?
Former Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Richard Dixon of Vets Now and Exchange board director Colette Grant, Grant Management, have both grown successful businesses with a fundamentally similar approach – a strong company culture and a focus on employee engagement. Their experiences proved educational for members at the Focus Dinner, particularly Callum Bastock.
“It’s important to start with recruitment and check suitability to company culture and values.
“Too often we have hired people that don’t fit in with our culture,” admitted Callum. “I remember Anne Rushforth saying to me years ago ‘you can’t run a marathon with a stone in your shoe, when its wrong move quickly and remove it’. However, all that happened was that new starts often didn’t last very long.
“By taking more time to test that candidates fit with our culture will save both money and time in the long run.”
Callum, of CCL Logistics, said his key tips from the evening were:
1. Culture is not a bolt-on, take it seriously from the top of the organisation down
2. Watch out for internal terrorists
3. Start with recruitment to check suitability to company culture and values
“When there’s a good culture, both customers and your own people notice it and benefit from it. For me a good culture means: externally – I want CCL to compete on service, this means the customer experience will be consistently better than our competitors.
“And internally – CCL will be recognised as a great employer. In today’s economy this has to be a Unique Selling Point.
“I’ll be implementing a recruitment policy with immediate effect.”
Feedback
“Tips I took from the evening – have few values and simplify – ensure to embed values in the questionnaire when recruiting new people.”
“My key tip was the importance of leadership in creating the correct values and culture.”
