Building Corporate Culture

Corporate culture. Type that into Google and you’ll get about 2.1 billion search results. Culture is the corporate buzz word of the decade. Employees are looking for it and employers are working hard to build it. But there is a common misconception that company culture is created by giving employees fun perks— yoga classes in the morning, free chips and salsa at noon, movies in the breakroom in the afternoon. Yes, these things add to the culture, but they don’t build it. They enhance it.

While researching the topic, I found many workforce experts agree that a healthy, company culture
includes:

• Happy, Engaged Employees
• Open Communication and Transparency
• Educational and Growth Opportunities
• Shared Vision and Values
• Job Security and an Absence of Fear
• Energetic and Creative Atmosphere
• Low Turnover

Corporate culture doesn’t just help you gain and retain employees, it also affects your financial performance, productivity, growth and customer service. Since joining the PREMIER organization, I’ve been able to observe how this company of 2,300+ has not only created, but maintained a healthy, positive corporate culture through multiple sites and business units.

We Share the Same Values

We call it The PREMIER Way. The company’s vision, views and values. The PREMIER Way is a guideline on how we should treat our co-workers, our customers and our jobs. It’s a roadmap to being successful not only in the workplace but also in the communities we serve. Every employee is given a PREMIER Way card on day one and every staff meeting ends with a reminder of one of these values. From the founder to the newest hire, we all share the same values and vision.

Employees Feel Valued

PREMIER is great about recognizing and rewarding success. But employees feel valued because everyone’s opinion matters at PREMIER. Leadership is transparent and accessible. They truly care what employees think. Every summer a corporate survey is sent out to all 2,300+ PREMIER associates asking them to share their opinion on everything from benefits to financial regulatory awareness. In 2019, 85 percent of First PREMIER Bank employees and 83 percent of PREMIER Bankcard employees responded.
This gave us a great overall picture of the organization’s health. The results are carefully evaluated and if change needs to happen, change happens. A perfect example of this is the construction of a new Main Office and Corporate Headquarters in Sioux Falls. Part of the decision to build came from corporatesurvey results describing cramped and dated facilities.

Employees are Engaged

When employees feel valued, they are more engaged. Engagement is the level of enthusiasm, innovation and commitment employees bring to the job. Job satisfaction is how happy an employee is with their current duties, benefits and pay. For the 2019 American Banker magazine’s “Best Banks to Work For” survey, we found that our associates are both engaged and highly satisfied. In the survey, 89 percent of our employees said PREMIER had a good corporate culture, 87 percent were satisfied with pay and benefits and 91 percent felt good about their relationship with their supervisor. When it came to overall engagement, 91 percent of our responding employees gave PREMIER high marks. PREMIER associates are excited about the job they do and know they make a difference for the company.

We’re Growing and Giving Back

First PREMIER Bank and PREMIER Bankcard have experienced incredible growth in the past two decades. We’re one of the strongest capitalized banks in America, the 12th largest issuer of Mastercard® credit cards and have received American Banker’s “Best Banks to Work For” honor five years in a row. In 1995, we had 265 employees. Today, PREMIER has more than 2,000 in Sioux Falls, Watertown, Huron, Dakota Dunes, Wakonda, Lake Norden and Castlewood, South Dakota. PREMIER Bankcard serves three million
customers nationwide and First PREMIER Bank has $1.8 billion in assets and manages another $3 billion in trust. One of our PREMIER Way values is to be eager to serve and this year our employees have given more than 25,000 volunteer hours to more than 700 organizations.

We Have Longevity

There is one last number I want to share—177. That’s the number of employees that have been with the
PREMIER organization for 20 years or more. That says a lot about a company and its culture.

Why Does it All Matter?

I understand company culture doesn’t just happen. It takes commitment and hard work. A bad culture is hard to change but it’s not impossible (and not immediate). A good culture is also easy to lose as you grow and change. It constantly requires nurturing. We spend an average of 90,000 hours of our life at work. That’s a lot of time. Isn’t it worth the effort to spend some of those hours creating a workplace where people feel happy and fulfilled?

Member FDIC. AA/EOE.