By Gary Richards, Hiring and Talent Expert, allpoints
I’ve spoken to a lot of people over the years about company culture, and something that always gets talked about is that it means something different to everyone. If you ask ten people what company culture is, you’ll probably get ten completely different answers. For some people it’s the feeling you get when you walk into the office, people being chatty and a friendly welcoming and upbeat atmosphere, but I’ve also come across others who value flexibility more, or just want the space and trust to get on with their work without constant noise or pressure around them.
That’s what makes culture such a tricky thing to define, because there isn’t one version of it that works for everyone. It really comes down to the kind of environment you want to build in your business and the type of team you want around you, because those two things shape each other more than people think.
When you talk about culture, there’s still a tendency to focus on surface-level things, what the office looks like, what perks are on offer, whether there’s a pool table in the corner or somewhere to sit with a coffee, and while those things might add to the environment, they’re not what actually holds everything together. The cultures that tend to work best are not necessarily the ones with all the fanciest aesthetics, but the ones where people are motivated, unified and genuinely collaborative, and that kind of environment is not created by a pool table or a few comfortable beanbags.
In my role, I’m constantly speaking to senior talent, people who aren’t always actively looking for a move but are open to the right opportunity if something feels right, so more often than not what makes them lean in isn’t just the job itself, it’s the environment they’d be walking into.
The most effective cultures I see across the clients I work with are the ones that make that decision easier, the businesses people are already curious about, the ones that come up naturally in conversation where there’s a sense of “I’ve heard good things about them” before we’ve even started talking about the role in detail. That usually comes down to how those environments actually operate day to day, when people trust each other, when there’s a shared direction, and when senior hires feel like they’re stepping into something that will support how they work rather than get in the way of it. At this level, culture becomes a real deciding factor, because when someone has options, it’s rarely just about salary or title, it’s about whether the business feels like somewhere they can grow and develop and deliver their best work.
Where Culture Proves Its Value
A strong example of this and how culture plays a huge role is from a candidate I worked with last year within the events industry. They had been in an agency where the experience had got to a point where they needed to take time out, and when we first spoke, they weren’t just thinking about leaving their role, they were questioning whether they wanted to stay in the events industry at all. That wasn’t because they weren’t capable or experienced, it was because they had only seen one version of how an agency could operate, and naturally assumed that was the norm.
We ended up placing them into a different agency, one I already knew had a strong, supportive environment, and while it took a bit of time for them to settle in and rebuild their confidence, the difference over a couple of months was huge and are now going from strength to strength. What changed wasn’t just the job itself, it was the environment around them and they moved into a space where there was genuine collaboration, team members trusted each other, and where they felt supported rather than scrutinised, that allowed them to work in a completely different way.
It’s a good reminder that culture doesn’t just influence how people feel at work, it directly impacts how they perform, how long they stay, and in some cases, whether they stay in the industry at all.
Communicating Culture Without Forcing It
One of the biggest challenges for businesses is not just creating a strong culture, but communicating it in a way that actually feels genuine. There’s often a tendency to try and spell it out too much, to list values or say “this is what we’re like,” but more often than not that can feel forced. It should come across naturally rather than being over-explained.
If it’s genuine, people will pick up on it quickly and the interview process plays a huge role in that, particularly when there’s a face-to-face element involved, because the moment someone walks into an office, they can get a real sense of what it feels like to be there. You can pick up on how people interact, whether there’s energy in the room, if people seem engaged or disconnected, and that’s something a video interview can not replicate in the same way.
Most businesses still rely on a fairly standard job description, a list of responsibilities and requirements on a page, but that only tells a very small part of the story. The companies that do this well take it a step further and build out something more complete, a document that gives a proper sense of the business someone is joining. That might include an introduction to the team, how people work together day to day, what the values actually look like in practice rather than just a list of words, and even insights from current team members so it feels like it’s coming from real people rather than the business speaking about itself.
Some also include the wider mission of the business, what they’re working towards, what drives them, and how each role contributes to that. By the time someone finishes reading it, they should have a clear picture not just of the job, but of the environment, the expectations, and the kind of people they’d be working alongside. When that’s done well, candidates go into the interview already understanding the business, and the face-to-face conversation then reinforces what they’ve already felt on paper.
However, culture can not just be packaged into a document or explained in an interview if it isn’t already there, culture has to come from the top. It comes from leadership, from how people are treated, the level of trust that’s given, and from whether people genuinely feel supported in how they work. When that’s in place, it naturally flows through the rest of the business, and you don’t have to try too hard to explain it because people can see it and feel it for themselves.
My Final Thoughts
Culture is never going to be a simple or fixed thing. It depends on the individual, on how people like to work, and on what they value day to day, but the environments that tend to work best are the ones where there’s trust in every direction, where people feel empowered to do what they do best, and where everyone is working towards the same outcome. When that’s in place, everything else tends to follow.