Company Culture Affects Your Business

Brian Halligan (HubSpot CEO)

Think of your workplace. Do the words enjoyable, fun, expressive, or freedom come to mind? Most of us would answer no. HubSpot’s CEO, Brian Halligan, challenged what an office space could be in order to bring a higher level of productivity from each employee.  Does having a great environment and culture increase productivity?

I first came across Brian Halligan while reading a 2011 issue of Inc. magazine’s top 500 companies. HubSpot was ranked #33 with a growth of over 6000% since 2008. Inspired to see what HubSpot was all about, I found one of the key ingredients to their success was their company culture.

The previous year, 2010, HubSpot was named “the best place to work” by Boston Business Journal. Halligan then wrote an article to the Huffington Post titled 10 Keys to Creating a Great Company Culture: Free Beer, Unlimited Vacation & More which explains why HubSpot is such a great place to work. He names ten unique unorthodox office policies that make HubSpot “the best place to work.”

1.    No Vacation Policy

You don’t have to ask your Boss, “Can I have the next week off for Vacation?” Feel like taking a week off? Do it.

2.    Free Beer

Not many workplaces allow drinking on the job. HubSpot believes it helps people unwind at the end of the day. If they abused this, it obviously gets taken away.

3.    Games

Have a break room that allows people to interact with each other. For example: Ping-Pong, foosball, couches, and free food/drinks. “It’s a good way for folks to get to know each other and refresh their minds. We also have frequent tournaments.”

4.    No Door Policy

No one has an office (this includes the CEO). HubSpot even rotate seats every so often to get everyone better acquainted with each other and their work.

5.    Extreme Transparency

It may be hard to be open about everything your company is doing with every employee. Trying to be transparent allows employees to feel involved in the company as much as the CEO is. This helps creative ideas come forward.

6.    HubSpot Fellows

HubSpot has a course built to encourage learning. “[It] is like an MBA for Hubspotters.” You can see if employees really care about their job, themselves and learning if you provide opportunities to show it.

7.    Friday 4 PM Happy Hour

HubSpot.TV is shot live at the office. Employees are encouraged to come and watch the show.

8.    No Dress Code

“We’re not a boarding school.” Employees wear what they want to wear. There is not a mandatory dress code.

9.    A Big Hair Mission

Give your employees a mission that personally drives them to be “cathedral builders rather than brick layers.” If they see the passion and love in why they are apart of your company they’ll give more.

10.  Social Media Policy = Trust

Any Hubspotter can post on their blog, twitter, and even private blog. “We put trust into the employee.” The more employees you have blogging the more inbound marketing you are going to drive to your online site that builds its credibility with your audience.

These 10 key points are certainly not normal when it comes to the workplace. Halligan credits these keys to creating the secret sauce he needs to have the best working environment for his employees. You might be thinking these policies are ridiculous and wouldn’t help your workplace be more productive. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on implementing any of these policies to your company or the company you work for.

Mike Alder is a University of Utah business marketing student and marketing specialist at Lendio. Passionate about entrepreneurship, small businesses, and inbound marketing. Mike shows his passion by sharing stories of successful entrepreneurs and companies with small business owners on the Lendio blog. He makes these big success stories easy-to-apply in simple and easy to read language for the everyday small business owner and entrepreneur.