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Small businesses generally get it right when it comes to creating a strong company culture. Why? Quite simply, it’s easy to create a family vibe with fewer employees. The practicalities of open communication with the boss are easy in a small business. How? At the start-up stage, business owners are hands-on and interacting with workers every day.

However, as a business grows, maintaining the family flavour and small-company personality isn’t so easy. Company culture is a complex eco-system. It needs nurturing in order to survive as it grows. Under-watering, or selectively overfeeding, will see your cultural eco-system wither and die.

Maintaining company culture as your business grows isn’t easy, but, effectively done, it will impact positively on your success. Here are our tips on how it can be done.

Communication is king

Start-ups tend to begin with one or two founders who are involved in everything. The founders represent the DNA of the business and are at the core of an emergent company culture. At the start-up stage, the vision, values and perspectives of the founders are transmitted easily to staff.

Communication in a small business with 20 staff or less is generally fluid and transparent, and feeding back to staff is easy. Communication in business is akin to blood circulation in the body. It takes the oxygen (or messages) essential for survival to every cell in the body (or every person in the business).

As a business grows, the open-door policy once embraced by leadership can easily be lost. Without it, a them-and-us mentality can develop, and open communication and feedback becomes harder to maintain.

Maintaining an open-door policy is crucial for keeping company culture intact. It encourages open communication, feedback and discussion. Effective communication channels are essential for healthy relationships at work. And these in turn, are the essential basis for a healthy organisation culture.

Define your culture and keep talking about it

Write down your values and the important things that define your business. It’s imperative you keep communicating your core values as you grow. Employees need to hear, feel, see and understand your culture if you are asking them to be a part of it and to uphold and maintain it.

Your values are what sets you apart from your competitors. These might include characteristics, such as honesty and loyalty, as well as the importance of personal growth and opportunity. Social events for your employees can help to nurture a sense of closeness and will contribute to keeping a strong company culture alive.

Effective hiring of the right people

Finding talented employees who fit in with your culture and values is key to maintaining a strong company culture as your business grows. An employee who doesn’t fit in could damage your culture by causing tension or difficulty amongst employees.

It’s relatively easy to recruit people with the right skills. It’s not so easy to recruit talent who connect with your core values and are the right cultural fit. It’s important to ask questions about your core values at any interviews. Be clear about the core values of your business and only recruit employees you are sure understand them and will fit in with your ideals. Just because someone is efficient at their job, it doesn’t mean they won’t be detrimental to your business.

Get employees involved

Your employees are never going to love your business as much as you do. But, given the opportunity they might love it half as much. The easiest way to get employees on side is to get them involved. Encourage employees to offer ideas, be involved in decision making and even have a say in recruitment of new employees.

Organise group staff events and don’t let individuals become isolated if they aren’t interacting with many other employees in their day-to-day role. It’s not uncommon when businesses grow for certain departments to become detached, especially if teams are based in more than one location.

Recognise and reward employees

As staff numbers rise, it’s common for business owners to become more distanced from the day to day. When this happens, achievements can easily go unnoticed and employees can start to feel just like a cog in a machine. Always take the time to recognise the initiatives and good work of your teams. Go the extra mile to recognise when employees exceed expectations, then they’ll keep going the extra mile for you.

Provide opportunities for growth

Small businesses are fairly flat organisations with limited room for growth when it comes to employees. As your business grows, it’s important you consider opportunities for growth from within before you hire in talent from outside. If you want motivated employees you need to offer growth opportunities.

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