4 ways to make company culture personal

March 31, 2023 11:53 AM

As employees are encouraged to "bring their full selves to work," it's up to leaders to set that tone.

Whether it's through a personal experience that inspires a business, or challenges and struggles that shape how they lead today, top executives from Cleo and Stork Club share that leading by example is foundational to building a supportive and successful culture. At Cleo, the company's focus on team support for caregivers and families is at play within the company, too. Recently, the platform named Madhavi Vemireddy, M.D., and Tsion Lencho as co-CEOs, and the two women shared how their experiences as caregivers and mothers are influencing their approach to leadership and business.

And at family planning benefit platform Stork Club, an early experience with fertility challenges eventually drove CEO Jeni Mayorskaya to create the company and provide the support that she could have used herself. Today, Stork Club offers education and a full spectrum of reproductive care for clients as they pursue their family planning journeys.

Building a successful work culture can take many different forms, but the outcome is the same: happy and engaged employees that feel connected to a company's goals and values. See how these companies are leading the way:

10 companies with the best culture, according to employees

Eighty-eight percent of workers believe that company culture is important in remote work, according to remote team building resource Gomada, and 78% of employees are actively looking for a more supportive work culture.

In an effort to help workers in their search for the company culture they're craving, workplace insights platform Comparably recently released its third annual list of businesses with the best culture. Despite a turbulent season riddled with layoffs and disgruntled employees, tech companies like Chegg, Hubspot, Microsoft and RingCentral have all appeared on the list for three consecutive years, with Microsoft defending its ranking as the business with the best company culture for the second year in a row. Workday made its debut on the list coming in at the number two spot.

Read:

10 companies with the best culture, according to employees

Fertility struggles led this CEO to tackle family building benefits at work

Mayorskaya, Stork Club's founder and CEO, says she didn't have the right support system to navigate infertility issues when she was in her early 20s, and she also felt uneducated about what was actually happening with her body. But the more she opened up about those questions and concerns, the more she realized she was far from alone.

"Having money and benefits is important, but I also realized I had no idea what the doctor was talking about, and as I started having more conversations with people, I discovered it's such a common situation," Mayorskaya says. "That was definitely the biggest inspiration for starting Stork Club."

Read:

Fertility struggles led this CEO to tackle family building benefits at work

At caregiving platform Cleo, 2 CEOs are better than 1

At Cleo, whose clients include Pinterest, Salesforce and Pepsico among others, the concept of a team approach is foundational to how they function internally, and support their own customers. As such, when looking for a replacement for their outgoing CEO, the company hired two women to lead as co-CEOs.

"At Cleo, we pass the baton and we model that for our teams as often as possible," says Lencho, who leads the company alongside Dr. Vemireddy. "We like to play to our strengths, and I think that's something that we bring forward throughout the organization."

Read:

At caregiving platform Cleo, 2 CEOs are better than 1

Recovery ready

Dana Piscopo struggled with alcohol addition throughout the pandemic. When she was ready to start her sobriety journey, she says she turned to her employer, Oracle, not just for support, but to help other employees who may have been struggling, too. Piscapo shares her path to recovery and why it was crucial for her to lead by example with her training program, Reclaim Your Moxie.

"I needed to tackle my own sobriety and recovery and I thought to myself, there is just no way that I'm the only one struggling in this corporation of 150,000 people. And if I needed support, there were other people that were going to need support too," Piscapo says.

Read:

Recovery ready