Quality Company Culture is Key to Retaining Employees

RCS Influencer Anna Anderson says establishing a company culture and core values is great for keeping great employees.

Editor’s note: The following consists of a conversation between RCS Multimedia Manager Megan Ellsworth, and Art Unlimited CEO Anna Anderson. 

Megan Ellsworth: Hello everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at RoofersCoffeeShop.com, and today I am chatting with Anna Anderson of Art Unlimited. Hi Anna.

Anna Anderson: Hey, so great to be here with you.

Megan Ellsworth: So glad to be chatting with you again. Last time we saw each other was at Western States. That was so fun. What a great show that was.

Anna Anderson: It was.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. So this month's topic is all about recruitment, entertainment, and what that has to do with culture. And the question is how important is culture in recruitment and entertainment? And I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Anna Anderson: Yeah, I think that to us as our company and then the companies that we represent through marketing, culture is a key component to not only acquiring great team members, but even more specifically, retaining them. We look at how can we continually protect our culture and add to our culture. So a couple of different things and we've talked about some different elements from we have a life coach on staff... Not on staff, but available to our team. We have many non-traditional benefits.

But when it comes to culture, one of the key things is living and breathing our core values. When we say a family vision and power and excel, we want to make sure that that is really embraced in our culture. And so we're talking prior to the recording here today about how, because we have four key core values, we take that core value and we focus on a different core value every quarter.

We highlight those values in a variety of different ways. One is we connect and we send out gift boxes or bags to each one of our team members across the country when we have our state of the company address. Those items connect to that core value. So that's just a super practical way that we say, hey, to us, part of our culture is in that physical form. You might not be able to connect with us in person all the time, but to us, this most recent gift was connected to the excel core value where we say we're committed to delivering quality, dependable results.

And then our other values that we look at for our EOS core values are empower. We look to help, we're coachable, we grow and we change lives. When we say vision, we say we embrace change. We're problem solvers. We have a positive can do attitude and, most importantly, the core value of family. That we're trustworthy, we're honest and we put the team first. And we're not perfect because we're human, but we truly try to embrace those core values and that has, at the core, the greatest impact on who we are, our culture, and how we attract and retain team members.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. When you were showing me the goody bag that you all gave out to your employees this quarter, it was so cool and it inspired me to bring it up to my company. I think that's so important, what it's all about, inspiration, getting people excited and that's what makes people want to stay at a great company. So that's really cool.

You mentioned your quarterly address. How do you approach that to engage your employees to feel like they're a part of that family?

Anna Anderson: Well, when we do our state of the company, some companies will just give a general address, kind of the state of the union type of presentation. To us, it's different. As a visionary, I'm going to do something that's maybe 20 minutes long. And then, as of yesterday we had about seven different people give different updates throughout the entire session. That allows us to empower other voices to reflect what's happening. But most importantly, I think if you have great culture, you're going to have more leaders rise up. And we're very blessed to have a lot of leaders in our company and they then have their own small teams that they directly work with.

To us a team is three to five to seven people. Try not to get larger than that seven. Twelve, you're starting to lose touch. And that allows us to also keep the culture really strong, the core values strong. And then those team leads have the ability to either impact what's shared at the state of the company and/or have a direct voice in that presentation.

It's very blended, well rounded. It's not just one person saying, here's what's happening with the company, but everybody has a true pulse and we're all same page and saying here's where the company is going together.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. I think that's so brilliant and very important. I think anyone that's reading this article or listening to the podcast should be taking notes because that is what makes people stay at the company is feeling included, not just one person running the show. I love that. So well said.

Anna Anderson: The other tip that I would say is make sure to honor and recognize your team members, praise in public, correct in private. It breeds a great culture. So one other piece that we do is we call out different team members on a weekly basis that have demonstrated the core values in private or public form. We bring that to the entire company. So that's broadcast in our weekly company, our team member email. And we also call it out in a variety of different ways, but people are like, "Wow, you actually called me out." I rarely get called out. You'd think I'd get called out a lot. But as a leader, it's kind of awkward.

I was recently called out and it was hush hush. They didn't want me to know that they were going to do this for me. I was like, "Wow, that's really special. It really touched me." And I thought, you know what? That's what it means for each and every one of our team members. It is. It's really impactful. I think as leaders of businesses, we need to pause and say, are we recognizing our team for the achievements that they're making and the strides that they're taking personally and professionally? And when we pause and we recognize that and we honor it, the impact that that leaves on other person is tremendous.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Well said. I think that goes into everyday life too. So you're just giving a TED talk here. I love it. So true. Thank you so much. Such wise words, and I think that everyone that is listening to this should take this into serious consideration for their company as well.

Anna Anderson: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me today, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome. Thank you so much Anna. And we will chat at the next conversation, which is the last one of the year. Crazy.

Anna Anderson: I know. It's flown by.

Anna Anderson is the CEO of Art Unlimited. See her full bio here.