Company culture is the set of unwritten rules by which decisions and behaviour actually happen within a company. It is not created by declaring values on a website, but by what management rewards, what it overlooks and what it does not tolerate. It can be assessed most accurately from specific situations: how a mistake is handled, whether it is possible to openly disagree with a superior, who the company promotes and who it parts ways with, how it deals with its highest-performing person who is harming the team. Culture directly affects turnover, recruitment success and people's willingness to take on responsibility. It can only be changed slowly, and only by changing management's behaviour, not through training or a document. For smaller companies, it is also one of the few real advantages in competing for people against larger employers.
See also: Employer Branding, Employee turnover and exit costs, Employee satisfaction survey.
