Software development relies on specialized skill sets to drive results, of course. Your company values and culture also play an integral role in development success! Without a positive company culture and work environment, development can lag from a lack of inspiration, motivation, or team cohesion. Everyone wants to feel like they’re making a difference—your goal should not be to just hit the mark for your core development projects, but also to continuously build capacity, confidence, and engagement within your development team. Helping them achieve a strong sense of ownership will have a direct impact on your ability to compete and succeed.
Define Your Company Core Values
Whether you’re a fan of Jim Collins’ Good-to-Great, Verne Harnish’s Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, or Gino Wickman’s EOS, you quickly learn that the foundation of your business and the key to reaching your full potential starts with defining your company’s core values. (Spoiler: They’ll likely end up being your own core values). You should internalize these core values yourself and work to engrain them in all of your employees. These values are not complicated, but they are critical because they form the foundation for community. This is not an easy process and requires a lot of reflection. But going through this exercise honestly and selflessly will simplify your life and business in ways that are difficult to describe. These aren’t just values you have and exhibit at work—these are fundamental to personal character and self-discipline. If you follow through with this earnestly, hiring and firing decisions will be centered around these same set of values.
Modularis’ Core Values:
- Family First – Nothing is more important than family. We care about the people we work with and are supportive of their well-being, aspirations, and the needs of their families.
- Take Ownership – We take ownership of our projects and are deeply committed to their success.
- Respect Everyone – We must show respect to everyone, from the janitor to the junior developer, to the chairman of the board.
- Trust Is Everything – Trust must be earned and maintained above all else. Integrity, reliability, honesty and openness are critical to our success.
- Look in the Mirror – We must always be willing to honestly examine our own performance and look for ways we can continuously improve.
We strive to live these values every single day. If you make the commitment to define and embrace your own set of values central to your company, culture, and beliefs, you will reduce friction, increase your people’s passion, motivation and buy-in, and begin down the path to reaching your full potential.
Focus on Culture Fit During the Hiring Process
Building a positive engineering culture requires the right fit in terms of employees. The hiring process is critical because you are seeking specific skills but also an individual who shares your company’s core values.
We wrote an entire piece dedicated to this exact topic. Read the Three Qualities of a Great Software Engineer for an in-depth look at qualities we love in engineers. Problem-solving abilities lead the list but taking the time to understand the company, communicating, and working well with others are also top of mind. These all factor into the hiring process and candidate selection because these qualities fit into company culture and reflect core values.
The hiring process and philosophy will vary across different companies and verticals, and each typically begins with the skillset as a primary filter. We don’t follow this approach. Our stance is that 80% of your hiring decision should be based on how well a candidate exhibits your core values, and only 20% on skill set. After all, would you hire an excellent engineer who doesn’t take ownership in what they do, is disrespectful of his peers or others, and is quick to blame someone else when something goes wrong? Of course not.
Build a Positive Software Company Culture
A company’s culture always flows from its leaders and the values they embrace. It can’t be faked. While some companies might offer a kegerator and pour-over coffee stations, these are just things. They don’t really deepen or reinforce values in the workplace or improve employee engagement.
The Modularis team worked exceptionally hard on behalf of our clients in 2021 and we rewarded everyone with a company retreat in Mexico. The retreat was centered around taking time off, resetting mentally and spending time connecting with each other outside of work. As a result, we deepened respect and trust while fostering positive relationships across the entire company.
As I said to our team during my keynote speech, building a great company and a healthy company culture isn’t about perks or trips—it’s about love:
We live our values every day. We only hire people who share our values. We try to get better at living our values every day, because we’re not perfect and we can always do better. I certainly know I can do better.
But you know what’s under those values, right?
One word: Love.
Love for our families. Love for each other. Love of our work. And love for everyone we touch: customers, partners, even strangers.
Love is what binds us together.
I meant every word of this and it really shows in the way our team approaches projects and treats clients. Moreover, it’s reflected in the way we treat each other at work. As a result, I’ve noticed the company culture has impacted a few key trends.
- Our performance is excellent
- Turnover is very low
- Client satisfaction and retention is high
So how do we make this happen in our day-to-day life at Modularis? We are busy and our folks work very hard. Like any software development company, we have sprints and times where the work requires complete focus and dedication.
We don’t push our people to grind it out. Remember that part about family and love? It applies to our customers as well. When they succeed, we succeed and that results-driven process touches everyone.
Our team is inspired to deliver great results because they actually care about the customer. They know the work being done will have a positive impact on the customer’s business and their lives as a whole.
After the hard work is done, we take the time to celebrate our people and show appreciation toward each other.
Focus on these three simple things:
- Developing Your Company’s Core Values
- Hiring Great People that share your values
- Building Positive Company Culture based on your values
When you do, you’ll see productivity, employee retention, and customer satisfaction skyrocket.
At Modularis, we are grateful for our team members and the work they do through PlatformPlus. Our great company culture and positive core values are the company backbone, and they made it possible to build the world’s most efficient development platform, backed by incredible software engineers and a dedicated leadership team.
Learn more about PlatformPlus and reach out any time to discuss your next project.