Your people don’t work for the company. They are the company.

This was one of many takeaways from presentation by Tran Andrada, sales engineering manager at HiBob, an HR platform named last month as one of Time magazine’s best new inventions. “If you get the culture right, everything else will follow suit,” she said. “Culture is how we feel at work. A lot of the successful businesses out there today are the ones that fostered culture, then leveraged it to scale the success of the business.”

Every leader wants to empower their team at work. But what happens when the very definition of work itself is changing? Andrada shared tips with attendees at From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Among the highlights:

Why Culture Is Shifting

Andrada noted that the definition of culture is in transition because the world of work is in transition–in more ways than one. A job used to shape much of a person’s identity, she said. Employees worked full time, at an office, probably in a city, and with little or no technology. These days, “work” includes considerations like:

•Location independence: Building systems that allow for flexibility and enable work-from-home arrangements.

•Avoiding burnout: Addressing hybrid work, life-work balance, and mental health initiatives.

•Identity and belonging: Awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Shifts like this are what led HiBob co-founder Ronni Zehavi to start documenting his personal interactions across the corporate ladder, from C-level executives to employees and line managers, Andrada said. Since 2015, Zehavi has interacted with over 3,000 customers around the globe, and incorporates the ways work has transformed into the company’s offerings and overall value proposition.

HiBob opened its first office in London in 2016, offering HR solutions in Europe, then opened a New York City office two years later. The HR unicorn’s technologies have attracted sizeable investments. HiBob has had three recent funding rounds: a $26.5 million Series A in 2019, a $70 million Series B in 2020, and a $150 million Series C in 2021, for a current valuation of $1.65 billion.

As Companies Scale, Culture Often Begins to Erode

Scale often leads to culture erosion and attrition, said Andrada. More perilously, employees who leave sometimes go to your competitors. HiBob uses what they company calls the “triple T” to jumpstart culture: trust, transparency, and teamwork.

“Even though our corporate headquarters are in Tel Aviv, our CEO hosts a global, all-hands call once a month,” she said. The company uses this call to cultivate transparency; Andrada cited one recent call in which Zehavi narrated a recent slide deck he had presented to the company’s board.

Even if companies aren’t growing in size, their workforces are changing, and younger employees value work differently than their predecessors. In one data set, 15% of chief HR officers said company vision was at least somewhat relevant to resignations on the part of their employees. But at those same companies, 62% of employees cited company vision as relevant, a notable discrepancy.

Andrada also cited research that outlined the “top 5 aspects of work viewed by employees as “very important” for an employer to provide.” 

1.) Positive culture (48%).

2.) Mental health and/or well-being benefits (42%).

3.) A sense of purpose/meaning (40%).

4.) Flexible work (38%).

5.) More than the standard two weeks of paid vacation time each year (36%).

As for continuing to navigate the shifting world of work, Andrada said a trust-first approach can keep employees connected and engaged, even when they’re thousands of miles away from each other. “When you build a culture of trust, the ‘Am I producing at the same level at home as I would if I were in the office?’ conversation will go away,” she said. “As Simon Sinek likes to say: ‘Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.’”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight.

Nick Wolny is a senior editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME. He has previously written for Fast Company, Fortune, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and OUT Magazine, and was named a “40 under 40” by the Houston Business Journal in 2021.