155. Building a Collaborative Company Culture with Rebecca Teaff
Values First
Hiring and retention are at the top of mind for many business owners, large and small, as the Great Resignation forces us to rethink work and company culture.
And you can’t talk about company culture, hiring, or retention without talking about the values you and your team need to be aligned on for successful partnerships.
Rebecca Teaff joins Erica to discuss how getting explicit about her values has shaped her hiring process, company culture, and allowed her to successfully retain team members and hire during this tumultuous time.
Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:
How to use culture fit interviews in your hiring process
Why your team needs to collaborate on defining your values
Why infusing your company culture with your values will touch every part of your business
Examples of the actions you can take as a business owner to take your values from implicit to explicit
Entrepreneur, Problem Solver, Dreamer
Rebecca Teaff is a CEO, creative entrepreneur, problem solver, and dreamer. Rebecca is the owner and founder of Redstart Creative. Redstart Creative is a branding and digital marketing company building and supporting brands for small businesses and nonprofits in the educational, environmental, and family services space. Redstart Creative supports organizations working for social impact and equity.
Rebecca has a passion for helping change-makers that matches her passion for running a business. Over the past ten years, Rebecca has been involved in multiple volunteer roles, including - Marketing Chair for the AFP Maryland Chapter and National Association of Women Business Owners - Baltimore Chapter, as well as receiving Maryland’s Top 100 Women Award in 2014 and 2018. Rebecca is also a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10000 Small Business Program - Baltimore Cohort 7.
The 2020 Shift
On the Pause on the Play® podcast, Rebecca Teaff says that when she started her company, Redstart Creative, she wasn’t sure if she was going to grow into a team from a solo entrepreneur.
She says she has always been transparent about growth and goals, but getting through 2020 with her team was a turning point in how supportive and cohesive the team was with each other as the business faced the challenges of that year.
“The biggest change has been realizing how special our team was and all of these inherent traits that we all brought to the table, but then articulating what there were.”
Working with Erica has led her to articulate and be explicit about the company’s values and how they do work, “so now when we bring someone in, we’re very clear, and they get a very clear feel for who we are.”
Rebecca says that quantifying those values, and having conversations, means that now “We’re where we’re meant to be…And I don’t know if I would have had that feeling…without that.”
Collaborative Definitions
Rebecca says it made a huge difference having her team actively involved in defining the company values, as opposed to years ago when she made a list on her own.
“We have values, but we never had a definition around them.” The team collaboratively worked to define concepts like collaboration, communication, and inclusivity and get clear on why those defined values are important to them and to Redstart.
Erica says that she often sees people talk about establishing values, but “so often they are just words, and it’s like, well, what does that mean? What does that mean in action?...Integration of those values and the definition of them and how they work…really does make a huge difference.”
Interviewing for Culture Fit
The process of defining values in action has impacted Redstart’s hiring processes, from writing a job description to how they interview and onboard new team members.
The biggest change Rebecca says they have made is using culture fit interviews. They interview not just for skills but for how a candidate’s work style and process would fit with the culture Redstart has cultivated, where they strongly value collaboration and communication.
“We ask those questions in the beginning of the hiring process…Most people will do a technical interview, and then they’ll ask the other questions…We only bring in two finalists to talk about the technical skills.”
Redstart has used this process to successfully hire five new team members in the last year as they’ve had internal shifts in roles and increases in capacity.
“They’re getting a sense of who we are in a culture fit interview on what matters to us, just as much as we’re getting a sense of them.”
Making the Values Explicit in the Culture
In order to welcome in and retain those new hires, they’ve also initiated a process of evaluating their company culture.
That has meant going through their handbook and onboarding materials to make sure the language there reflects their values. They’ve changed their vacation time policies to include more team members. And they’ve continued to adapt to the changing circumstances of remote work and what that means for their team.
Rebecca says it’s an open conversation about what work structure people need, if they need more hours or fewer hours due to life circumstances, if they want to be fully remote, or make use of the office space. “It’s important for people to feel valued and go; we get that you have a life outside of here.”
She continues, “I don’t think it’s rocket science that people who are happy and feel appreciated and feel valued as individuals are going to produce great work and work well with one another.”
Erica says there truly is nothing that working on company culture doesn’t touch in your business from hiring, onboarding, and office policies, to even the office space itself.
Another piece of how Redstart has been able to retain their employees is simply compensation.
She says, “if there is any reason to raise your prices, [compensation] is it. If I’m a company that is making less of a profit margin because I’m paying my team well and they have good benefits, that’s okay with me.”
Action with Empathy and Compassion
Rebeccae’s advice to CEOs and business owners who may be struggling with their company culture or hiring is to begin by getting “very clear on who you are, what you do, why you matter, and what makes you unique. And you need to know those things foundationally.”
Out of that, she says, comes your mission, vision, and values that you align and communicate with your employees on, then use that when you’re bringing in new team members.
She says in the current moment where collectively we’ve been in a difficult and exhausting experience, empathy and compassion for your employees’ circumstances is also key.
“Businesses can do well by treating their employees well. And I think the more we are looking at each other as humans, recognizing each other’s strengths, I just think that so much good can come out of that.”
Ready to dive deeper?
Leading with your values requires you to be explicit about what you support, the company culture you’re seeking to create, and how your actions align with that. To get support and insight into how you can do company culture and hiring differently, join us for the From Implicit to Explicit Masterclass.
Learn more at pauseontheplay.com/explicit