How To Make Culture Tangible Or Real

We’ve all heard of the idea of creating a customer persona when defining your ideal customer along with their needs and desires. You ask yourself what types of advertisements influence them, where should we advertise to them, and what vocabulary should we use in our marketing attempts?

But, what if we all had an employee persona too?

A lot of times, people get confused and overwhelmed when working on culture because it’s this intangible thing you can’t ever seem to grasp. It’s not very clear for many. It’s changing faster than we may think. How do we bring more clarity to culture? How do we know we are positively influencing it? How do we bring it to life? 

Well, we humanize it.

We can start by giving it a name. 

Southwest Airlines calls the culture and employee workstyle “The Southwest Way.” “Employees of Southwest Airlines are encouraged to ‘Live the Southwest Way.’  This includes:

✔️ Have a Warrior Spirit - work hard, desire to be the best, be courageous 

✔️ Have a Servant’s Heart - put others first, live by The Golden Rule 

✔️ Have a Fun-LUVing Attitude - be a passionate Teamplayer, have fun

Now think about your own employees and company culture. Ask yourself some of these questions to craft your culture persona:

✔️ What are the overarching characteristics between most or all of our employees?

✔️ If we took the sum of all of us (strengths + weaknesses), what would we get?

✔️ If we had an idealized employee, what kind of person would they be?

✔️ If that idealized employee had a name, what would it be?

✔️ What is their mentality?

✔️ How do they view the world and their work?

✔️ What are some of their mannerisms and mantras?

✔️ How do they make decisions? 

✔️ What are their values?

✔️ What’s most important to them?

✔️ What kinds of activities do they do? 

✔️ What kinds of clothes do they generally wear?

✔️ What kinds of music do they listen to? 

Considering these questions can help you bring your culture to life! Employees can then take on this persona when they come to work. Your team can use this persona as a way to make decisions on behalf of the company. This tactic can even help you with finding the next hire. Would this potential hire get along with your culture persona? Are their missions aligned?

Having a persona (or avatar) as a physical representation of what you strive for in your company’s culture makes this concept easier to grasp. By being intentional about your culture, you can create a workplace that is both productive and fulfilling for your employees.

Want to explore creating your culture persona together? Connect with us!