In the past, company culture has taken the back burner when it comes to priority within the company. Many executives believed company culture to be an internal issue that has little to no impact on the bottom line.

While company culture most directly impacts the wellbeing of your employees, it also heavily affects the company’s finances. A strong, supportive culture breeds resilient, creative, and engaged employees who will impress customers and attract new business.

A poor company culture, at best, will produce mediocre employees with lackluster attitudes. Unenthusiastic employees will drive customers away, lower productivity, and decrease your profit margin.

UE.co is one company that takes company culture seriously. Applying impactful culture alignment at every stage of an employee’s career at the company, UE.co ensures their stellar culture is implemented from onboarding and continuing through long-term development.

Equal Parts partner, Michael Valenzano, sat down with the CEO, Jason Kulpa, to learn how the company promotes its core values and strong culture to select and mentor the right people for their company.

It Begins Before The Beginning

UE.co is a San Diego based tech-enabled marketing services company that builds CRM software solutions to improve how enterprise companies manage their customer data. They are in an ultra-competitive industry and must constantly reexamine and reinvent how they do business to stay relevant.

During their hiring process, UE.co looks for employees with strong qualifications who are also aligned with their company culture. Specifically, they are interested in candidates with an entrepreneurial mindset and a visible drive to be the best.

UE.co continuously develops its employees using three core values that focus both on the wellbeing of employees and on driving the operations of their business. The values are:

• People incubation

• Continuous improvement

• Chasing perfection

People Incubation

New employees are encouraged to independently explore new ideas and share them with the community. There is no “wait until you get your feet wet” mentality. UE.co wants to see employees working towards goals, achieving them, and setting new goals.

However, employees don’t work in a vacuum. As they work on projects, they collaborate as necessary. The company facilitates teamwork through frequent updates, departmental meetings, and company all-hands meetings.

Continuous Improvement

UE.co is never satisfied with its level of customer service; a constant improvement around the entire customer experience is the priority goal for the company. The entire team works to better the company through innovation and creativity. UE.co creates an office environment that employees are excited to come into and that drives them to do their best work. When employees take pride in their work, it motivates them to take responsibility for the bottom line.

Likewise, UE.co wants its employees to constantly focus on self-improvement and their own personal career goals. Employees are motivated by the expedited career path UE.co offers and seeing their direct impact on revenue, business, and culture. There is a structured training program at the company that provides a two-year guided path to new employees. The program is specifically tailored to each employee’s goals and revolves around providing opportunities and challenges for growth and skill development.

Chasing Perfection

UE.co inspires employees to always seek perfection. They understand there really is no hardline definition of perfection, but they want their employees to strive for the closest possible thing

Why? Because it is the relentless pursuit of perfection that guarantees the best customer experience. Even if they never reach “perfection,” the result of working towards it provides the best level of customer service possible.

The effort UE puts into striving for perfection hasn’t gone unnoticed either. They were highlighted on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies for four consecutive years. In 2012 and 2013, the National Association of Business Resources recognized UE as one of the Nation’s Best & Brightest Companies. UE is also a two-time winner of the San Diego Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in San Diego (2011 and 2013).

Company Culture In Action

So, what does UE.co do every day to foster and promote their company culture? Management developed a process to ensure they have like-minded people in the company and a way to help them achieve their personal and professional goals.

For the short-term goals, each department has a daily scrum in which they meet and discuss personal goals, how to overcome obstacles, and seek help from each other in achieving their goals. Jason Kulpa, the CEO, said, “By verbalizing individual goals, not only are employees more likely to accomplish them, but these goals will likely be completed at a more efficient rate.”

New employees begin with shadowing, mentoring, and learning. UE.co offers $1500 a year in education reimbursement, and they have monthly training sessions for both the managers and the employees.

How UE.co Cultivates the Best Employees

UE.co built a structure to promote the constant improvement of operations. Their offices are open and spacious, inviting creative movement, and collaboration among peers. They have an in-house bar, games, and team building exercises.

At Ue.co, Company Culture Is A Process

The important take away from studying UE.co is company culture requires an ongoing cultivation process.

By recruiting the best possible matches for their company and capitalizing on their skills and the internal workings of the company, UE.co consistently maintains a culture of innovation, growth, and excellent customer care.

At Equal Parts we work with companies by collaborating to create solutions that maximize both internal and external operations. Contact us today to find out how we can help your company focus on building and maintaining a positive company culture.