Hello! I’m Yusuke, the HR guy with the dreadlocks. On December 1, 2021, we launch “Culture Deck.”

➡https://www.colorkrew.com/about/culture_deck/

In this blog, I’d want to explain why I came up with the concept of producing a Culture Deck in the first place.

■What exactly is a Culture Deck?

A Culture Deck is a document that describes and summarizes a company’s corporate philosophy, management concepts, and anticipated employee conduct in a thorough manner. More and more firms are developing similar products, although Netflix is perhaps the most well-known. Netflix’s Culture Deck has been called “the most important document ever to come out of the Valley”.

■Why are we creating a Culture Deck now?

We felt the need for a Culture Deck for the following three reasons.

①Decreased communication across the organization ②Accelerating global hiring ③Employees living in various locations

Let me go through each one individually.

①Decreased communication across the organization Since February 18, 2020, when the symptoms of Corona began to manifest, we have encourage remote work and limited the number of employees coming to work to ensure the safety of our employees. We observed a drop in talk as soon as we started working remotely. We treated it as a serious problem and took a number of steps to address it.

Despite this, approximately 60% of employees in a recent internal poll performed in October 2021 complained about a lack of communication within the organization. (However, many people said they were happy with the communication within their teams and with the people they work with on a regular basis)

In order to prevent silos, we will continue to try and improve communication opportunities across the organization. Quantity x quality equals communication. We decided it was important to establish a shared understanding of the  Colorkrew principles in order to increase the quality of each conversation (understanding and empathy for the culture).

②Accelerating global hiring At Colorkrew, we aim to create a global team and a successful global business, and around half of our most recent employees are non-Japanese.

They come from completely different backgrounds, and the high-context communication that is unique to Japanese people doesn’t work. As a result, I believe it is crucial to discuss what we at Colorkrew feel to be significant and what we do not consider to be relevant.

③Employees living in various locations As previously said, due to the Corona’s impact, our working style has shifted towards remote work. We may now recruit workers from all throughout Japan, not simply the Tokyo metropolitan region. This approach has been quite successful in attracting new members, and Colorkrew now has a large number of prospective members.

In the past, we used to be able to comprehend Colorkrew’s culture by simply spending time in the same location on a regular basis. However, this is not possible for people who live far away. In order for them to fit into the team, We believe it is necessary to communicate the “Colorkrew method” in writing.

To summarize,

・Due to remote work, a lack of “company-wide communication” became apparent. We will keep increasing the frequency of contact, but we’ll also need to enhance the quality. ・With the aggressive recruiting of foreigners and employees who live far away from the organization, diversity is progressing at a rapid rate. We need to convey Colorkrew culture properly in writing in order to propagate it to them.

The Culture Deck was born as a result of this situation.

■Creating the Culture Deck

We have always managed our organization in a very flat manner, and we have always prioritized connecting people through culture rather than rules. For this purpose, we have been brushing up our MVS (Mission, Vision, Spirits) numerous times.

➡https://www.colorkrew.com/about/mvs/

In fact, with the introduction of Culture Deck, we’ve updated our VISION once again.

Make your vision colorful!　~Vision Renewal

Colorkrew’s MVS represents the ideas and attitudes that should be most significant to the Colorkrew members. All of these are expressed in short, catchy words, so we thought it was necessary to clearly express them in detail.

This is how the Culture Deck came to be.

When I was creating this, I attempted to express it in as much detail as possible in simple words. Of course, there is also the English version.

We hope that it will help you understand and reaffirm MVS, as well as improving the quality of your daily communication, and ultimately increasing the productivity of your team.

We also hope that it may assist people considering joining Colorkrew in better understanding our unique culture.