Image credit: William – stock.adobe.com
The value of maintaining a strong company culture and positive working environment has been highlighted by news that BrewDog is giving away just under £100m of company shares to its salaried staff, and launching a profit-sharing scheme for its bar workers, following a long-running dispute with unhappy former employees.
According to a company statement, the Scotland-based brewer’s founder and CEO, James Watt, will donate a fifth of his personal stake in BrewDog – worth £100m at its most recent fundraising valuation – to the company’s 750 salaried workers over a four-year period. Marking the firm’s fifteenth anniversary, the share award will be worth around £30,000 a year to each ‘crew member’ when the scheme begins in June 2022, the company said.
In addition, every BrewDog bar will now share 50% of its profits with its bar staff, thereby “democratising the benefits of working for a successful business in our industry”.
Culture detox
BrewDog claims that the new arrangement will mean that, between them, the company’s salaried staff and ‘Equity Punk’ shareholders will own 25% of its shares, thereby owning the biggest single stake in the firm. Watt said the aim of the scheme is to put “crew members across the world at the centre of the business”.
In an article for Yahoo Finance, writer Holly Williams suggests that BrewDog’s share giveaway is a move to address the company’s culture after a group of 60 former employees accused the firm’s leadership of instilling a “culture of fear” and “toxic attitudes” towards junior staff.
According to Williams’ article, the group “published an open letter alleging that BrewDog was built upon a ‘cult of personality’ around its founders, with ‘growth at all costs’ the overarching focus of the company”, resulting in staff feeling “burnt out, afraid and miserable” and a “significant number” suffering from mental illness.
Responding to those accusations, Watt said that BrewDog had already made changes after the open letter was published, and that the share award scheme was about “building the best company we possibly can” rather than mending relationships with employees, according to Williams.
Foundations of success
The response to BrewDog’s announcement emphasises why it’s vital for leadership teams to grow and maintain a positive company culture. If your company culture is deemed to have become toxic from the outside (even if it’s not necessarily the case for staff on the inside), then reputational damage has been done, and it becomes much harder to recruit talented people.
In an article for Business Insider, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky explains why it’s so important for leadership teams to revisit their company’s culture and values regularly. “Culture and values are the foundation for building an enduring, successful company,” he says.
“We first codified our culture and values 13 years ago and they are, without a doubt, LinkedIn's greatest competitive advantage … They've helped us attract thousands of new employees, re-attract hundreds of boomerang employees, and are what led to our approach to hybrid work. The company has also never performed better.”