This post first appeared on the HubSpot.
This post was inspired by HubSpot co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Dharmesh Shah and the ideas he’s put forth regarding company culture and how he’s creating a company he loves with The HubSpot Culture Code.
More than 52 percent of Americans are unhappy at work.
That’s insane! And what’s even more insane is that it doesn’t have to be this way. By using the same principles involved in constructing inbound marketing plans, we can build satisfying workplace environments that attract top talent and motivate current team members to do their best work. Or, as Shah says so concisely, “Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.”
Stick With Me, or Jump Ahead
For this post, I’ll run through the current state of affairs with regards to workplace culture and then dive a bit into the sociological reasons behind why it’s important to invest in the development of a company culture that promotes employee happiness.
If you’d like to skip the background info and get right to the three-step solution, feel free to skip down to the sub-header titled “The Three-Step Inbound Marketing Approach to Creating a Happy Workplace.”
The Current State of Affairs
For the first time in history, many people are choosing to delay (or forgo) having families of their own and are choosing to live and work in locations that are not in close geographical proximity to their given (birth or adoptive) families.
These cultural shifts, among other factors, have resulted in a lack of both logistical and emotional support for a large portion of our population. In turn, this lack has given rise to the formation of Urban Tribes – family units comprised not of a person’s biological or adoptive family, but instead of those people who 1) live in close proximity to us, and 2) we choose to spend our non-working, free time with.
Urban Tribes are made up of our friends and neighbors – the people many of us have come to rely on to perform the duties (birthday celebrations, holiday gatherings, emotional support during difficult times, assistance moving to a new home, etc.) that used to be handled by our “real” families.
But what about the other people we spend our time with; the people we don’t necessarily choose to spend time with? What about the people we work with? (After all, most of us spend the majority of our time with co-workers – approximately 40 hours every week.) Now compare that 40 hours to the total number of waking hours we spend with our partners, children, given family, and fellow urban tribe members.
If it’s not less time, it’s definitely near equal. So why are we OK with more than half of us being unhappy at work?
Continue reading on the HubSpot blog.
