Jack Thorogood: Why company culture is important for Native Teams

Company culture is an important part of any business. From attracting top talent to improving employee satisfaction, it’s the backbone of any successful company.

What I’ve learned from my 15+ years of managing and working with remote teams from all over the world is that when your employees work in a positive, motivating and encouraging environment, they can perform much better, develop their careers further and be generally happier at work and in life.

Building and maintaining a strong company culture and company identity is an integral part of Native Teams since the very beginning. Let’s learn why!

Importance of culture in a successful company

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of organizational culture in business. A culture that reflects the collective personality of the company and interactions both internally within the team and externally with clients.

Since we founded Native Teams (together with Alex Mitrevska and Nikola Bubevski), enhancing and developing our culture has been one of our focus areas. We were always a remote-first company, so building a flexible team with shared values and attitudes was (and still is) essential to us. Moreover, it’s equally important that our employees work well with each other despite living in different countries, speaking different languages, and having different traditions and customs.

I am extremely proud to say that until now we have managed to build a successful and highly cooperative team of more than 100 employees from 20 different countries and 5 continents!

How can business leaders create company cultures that drive businesses toward success?

We, business leaders, have an enormous impact on company culture. We set the agenda, prioritize tasks, manage and lead our teams and are responsible for taking our teams forward. Strong leaders should be able to provide the purpose and vision of the company as well as provide mentorship and inspiration to their team.

Without a positive company culture, employees can struggle to find their work valuable, which can have several negative consequences for your business down the road.

They say that a manager is only as strong as their team. So if you want to become stronger, you should first prioritize making your team stronger.

How we’re shaping corporate culture at Native Teams

A good corporate culture is one where managers and employees share similar goals and create a plan on how to achieve them together.

Because we are a remote-first company, collaboration, flexibility, freedom and trust are among the top values which consequently shape our Native Teams company culture. Our team members work from many different places around the world (with multiple time zones), and flexible work schedules along with async work, a high level of trust and good communication, proved to be the best way for us to achieve great results. 

All those also make Native Teams an attractive employer, since many modern employees value this way of working, instead of a more traditional 9-5 office environment. Those are usually the most important reasons, why people decide to join Native Teams.

Another thing we are continuously doing is asking our employees for their input and feedback. We value transparency and when it comes to working expectations, we always make sure that employees know our expectations beforehand.

We also understand that employees who take care of their physical and mental health will be more productive and effective. So, we encourage prioritizing a good work-life balance for each one of our employees.

I personally believe that one of the most crucial aspects of the future success of Native Teams is not only being a company people want to work at but also a place where our employees can further develop their knowledge, grow in their respective roles and develop their career in any direction they find most suitable.

It makes me extremely happy to say that the employee retention rate at Native Teams is very high and we will strive to continue keeping this rate high while we’re growing our team.

Good company culture can increase productivity

The research shows that organizations with strong company cultures can experience higher productivity and more commitment from their employees. From the employer branding perspective, positive company culture can also significantly affect your employer value proposition.

To sum up, maintaining a strong and positive company culture is an important part of Native Teams and will remain this way. The only way we can become one of the learning providers of work payments solutions is to have people who are happy and enthusiastic about Native Teams working for it.

Do you want to be part of our growing team and help further develop our Native Teams solutions? If the answer is yes, then make sure to check out our open positions because we’re hiring globally!