How to Build a Culture That Attracts and Retains Talent

Especially in the production industry, it's easy to discount your office and company culture. After all, you're not in a literal office but on set or location for a great deal of your work. Perhaps very few people are office regulars—or maybe your production company is fully remote! Whatever the case may be, your company culture is something that can make or break your business's longevity.

The actual cost of employee turnover extends beyond the loss of talent. It's the loss of institutional and cultural knowledge, taxes everyone's bandwidth, and can incur costly hiring and training expenses. In all seriousness, employees are a company's most valuable asset. Especially if your company is small, spending time and energy nurturing and developing a culture that attracts and retains talent will be the secret ingredient that puts your business miles ahead of the pack.

How Does a Company Get a Culture?

At traditional companies, there's often a whole subsection dedicated to all things company culture: Human Resources. SYZYGY is now fully equipped and ready to step in and fill the gaps where an HR department should be or provide a crucial sounding board for your already existing HR department. Along with our human resources offering, SYZYGY can expertly handle compensation, rewards, and benefits packages and advise on your company's policies, whether you're in the start-up phase or a legacy brand.

Whether you choose to work with us or not, there are several key pillars to establishing an attractive company culture for creatives and producers alike. Here's what you need to get started:

Define and Communicate Core Values

What clear core values reflect your company's mission and vision? Even if you feel secure in these principles, do your employees know about them? When everyone's on the same page about what matters to your company, it makes decision-making clearer and gives your team a shared sense of purpose.

Take Nike's bold move to partner with Colin Kaepernick in 2018. By standing behind this controversial choice for their “Dream Crazy” campaign, they showed what they truly value - and attracted passionate, socially-conscious talent in the process. How do your company's actions reflect what you believe in?

Promote Transparency and Open Communication

Don't be afraid of feedback! Actively solicit it. Transparency builds trust and security among employees. Whatever way you want to facilitate an open dialogue, make it a regular practice in your business.

Encourage Employee Autonomy

This can mean actively supporting a work/life balance with your employees or allowing them to manage and track their team's tasks. Permitting your employees to make pertinent decisions makes them feel valued because you're letting your feelings of trust manifest into actions (not to mention that getting answers quickly helps overall workflow). Autonomy makes employees feel valued and encourages them to stay.

Foster a Collaborative Working Environment

Collaboration is the opposite of competition. Competition creates unnecessary friction and tension amongst colleagues, so lean in the opposite direction.

Recognize and Reward Contributions

Everyone loves to be recognized for a job well done! This doesn't always mean bonuses (although it can). Verbal praise or acknowledgment can go a long way and boost overall morale.

Create Safety and Inclusivity

This should go without saying, but ensure your workplace is free from harassment, discrimination, and other prejudicial policies. If not already in place, consider spearheading a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative (DEI). DEI isn't as controversial as some would like you to think; it's what makes your workplace a better place to be.

Lead by Example

Of course, all of this goes out the window if you are only talking the talk and not walking the walk. Embodying these values as a leader will permeate throughout your workforce.

Beyond the Basics

Beyond perks, benefits, and pay, many elements make a company stand out as a desirable workplace, and a lot of that comes down to company culture. HR is there to enforce and establish the culture in question, but you can make significant headway just by being an effective leader.

Need help finding that sweet spot between attractive employee packages and your bottom line? That's where SYZYGY comes in - even for the smallest start-ups. The production world is competitive, and the right company culture isn't just nice to have - it's what keeps the best talent walking through your door and sticking around for the long haul. Your success depends on it.