Every company in the world has its own culture, regardless of the size. From super-small teams to global corporations, each organization nurtures a set of values and transfers them to all employees.
This is extremely important because healthy cultures boost the company’s reputation, productivity, and retention rate in the long run.
Facebook is one of those companies that built a strong corporate culture and became recognized by its ability to promote the same values across all levels of the hierarchy. Lori Goller, a Vice President of People at Facebook, recently shared her thoughts about corporate culture in the world’s largest social network.
Lori revealed some interesting details that we all should learn from. It doesn’t matter if you are running a small business or a medium-sized company – these conclusions are universal and thus useful to all of us. In this article, we will show you 5 valuable lessons from Facebook corporate culture.
5 Ways Facebook Builds its Corporate Culture
Facebook gathers more than 2 billion users. It also employs over 17 thousand people, which is a nice result for the company that started as a business in 2004 with only 7 workers. These figures would be impossible without a well-planned corporate culture, so it is very interesting to figure out the ways how Facebook managed to build it. Let’s take a closer look here:
Focus on a mission
Representatives of Facebook often emphasize that their mission is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” What they really do is enable people to establish a closer connection with friends and family all around the globe. This sort of community building is something that Facebook nurtures within the company as well.
Before recruiting, they always introduce job candidates to the company mission and explain to them what it feels like to work for Facebook. Each member of the team is carefully selected through the consensus-based process, which increases the overall efficiency of the recruiting procedure.
New employees are aware of corporate culture and understand that it’s not only about the job itself but also about the way they build relationships with their colleagues. It is actually a huge part of Facebook’s value proposition and one of their ways to attract the most talented professionals. Although it is a gigantic team, they all feel like they belong to the same community.
Let employees show their strengths
Every single person in the world is great at something. Guys at Facebook understand this very well and they always try to put the right person in the right position within the company. To put it simply, Facebook allows its employees to reveal their biggest strengths, establishing it as one of the basic principles of corporate culture.
It makes employees satisfied and more productive, which is why a lot of people keep their jobs for a long time. There are two ways to achieve this: conducting exit interviews and self-assessments. Individuals who leave Facebook tell their opinion about corporate culture and the work atmosphere in general. At the same time, current employees evaluate their own work but also company procedures. It gives Facebook valuable feedback that can be used to improve potential shortcomings.
Besides this, people at Facebook tend not to judge others. Instead, they are trying to embrace failures as inevitable elements of work processes. They analyze mistakes and learn from them, thus lifting the business to the higher level with each problem they solve successfully.
Be an authentic boss
A top priority of almost 60% of organizations is to close leadership skill gaps. Facebook, on the other hand, doesn’t have to deal with this kind of problem. Mark Zuckerberg is in charge of the overall direction and product strategy for the company. Additionally, he leads the design of Facebook’s service and development of its core technology and infrastructure.
But the quality that makes him such a great leader is not his skills but his authenticity. Zuckerberg managed to build the company thanks to his proactive communication with all members of the team. It became one of the cornerstones of Facebook’s corporate culture and the one thing that his employees appreciate the most. He is always transparent and asks people for their opinions.
His workers claim that he is privately the same guy they watch on TV. It’s hard to imagine the owner of one of the biggest companies in the world being so casual but that’s who Mark Zuckerberg really is. And that is something that you should also look up to in your own company.
Expect your workers to take initiative
One of the finest privileges of working at Facebook is having the chance to function independently. Namely, employees understand and respect the general strategy of the company but they are allowed to take initiative and be creative. As the matter of fact, this is more or less a mandatory requirement if you want to work for this social media giant.
Besides routine everyday tasks, each employee is supposed to contribute with fresh and alternative ideas from time to time. Facebook workers have the freedom to personalize duties and find their own way of getting things done. As long as they produce high-quality work, it doesn’t matter how they come up with good ideas.
Support life outside of work
Facebook’s corporate culture saves plenty of room for the life outside of work. Their goal is to make employees as relaxed and comfortable as possible because they know that happy workers are the most productive workers. The entire Facebook community is there to support colleagues who need help and go through hard times.
For example, they recently introduced extended bereavement and parental leave. The goal of this company is to nurture healthy relationships and strengthen bonds between its employees. Essentially, they want “good workers, family members, and friends.”
People who work at Facebook also have a lot of additional on-site perks. Whether it’s a grocery store, a gym, or a pharmacy – everyone can find some practical help that makes daily functioning much more comfortable. Things like this would not be possible without the Facebook’s strong commitment to the development of corporate culture.
Conclusion
Corporate culture is one of the most important preconditions of company’s long-term success and that is why all of us should learn from the best examples in the field. In this article, we analyzed 5 things that make Facebook corporate culture so strong and productive.
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About the Author:
Warren Fowler is a marketing enthusiast and a blogger at EduGeeksClub, who loves music. If he doesn’t have a guitar in his hands, he’s probably embracing new technologies and marketing techniques online! Connect with Warren on Twitter and Facebook.
