There was a time when sceptics, me included, might have taken the words ‘company culture’ with a large pinch of salt.

Seen as a tactic to help businesses stand out as unique versus their competitors and more attractive during the talent acquisition process, the concept of culture felt, in many cases, to be backed up more by PR spin than evidence.

Coronavirus, and the responses of certain companies to the challenges it has posed, have helped to dispel such myths.

Retailers’ cultures have been shunted front and centre – for better or for worse – over the past few months. There have been some clear winners, such as the Co-op, while others such as Sports Direct have faced near-relentless criticism for the way they have gone about their business during the crisis.

This week has emphasised such a schism and the increasing importance of company culture in the uncertain and disruptive climes the world is facing into.

“There are those that already had strong core values in place and have allowed their culture to drive their responses to the pandemic, rather than vice versa”

On the one hand, Amazon’s culture has been called, very publicly, into question. Tim Bray, vice-president and distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services, quit his $1m-a-year role over the etail titan’s treatment of workers who blew the whistle on working conditions at its warehouses during coronavirus.

In a no-holds-barred blog, posted following his resignation, Bray said Amazon’s sacking of protesters was “evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture”.

Bray said he “quit in dismay” because “remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised”.

Amazon may be investing $4bn into its coronavirus response in its second quarter – which started on April 1 – but many of the measures, such as making operational changes in warehouses, removing sellers that flouted pricing policies and donating Amazon devices to healthcare workers and schools, smacked of a business playing catch up rather than leading from the front.

Others, in comparison, have attributed their success to date during the pandemic directly to their cultures.

Therein lies the crucial difference. There is a group of retailers that may see coronavirus as a way to improve the image of their businesses, and their cultures, by being seen to do the right thing for customers and colleagues. It can come across as cosmetic. 

Then there are those that already had strong core values in place and have allowed their culture to drive their responses to the pandemic, rather than vice versa.

Core purpose

Conversations with Pets at Home boss Peter Pritchard and Tesco’s chief operating officer Tony Hoggett this week have hammered that point home. Both credited the rapid changes they have been able to make to the strength of the underlying philosophies and principles that already ran through their respective businesses.

Central to Tesco’s response, Hoggett said, in ramping up online delivery capabilities, building pop-up shops at NHS Nightingale sites in double-quick time and ripping up the rulebook on store operations, has been its “really strong core purpose” around “treating people how they would like to be treated and trying really hard for customers”.

“If you talk about them and get credit in the bank for a number of years, they tend to pay out for you when you really need it,” Hoggett told me. “The start point is having a really well-trained workforce that is committed to a purpose, and then when you really have to ask for that little bit more support, you get it.”

Those comments are echoed by Pritchard in a column for Retail Week, in which he said that having a sense of purpose and belonging, “a reason which is greater than just taking sales”, has motivated staff throughout the pandemic.

“Even the world’s most financially secure businesses like Amazon are likely to find that company culture matters more than ever to their staff, shoppers and shareholders”

“Your colleagues won’t thank you for putting sales ahead of their safety or fears. Being able to explain why you are trying to do something is more important,” he wrote. “In our case, feeding the nation’s pets and keeping them healthy and safe was a real rallying call – we had a role to play in serving the nation.”

He added: “As retail leaders, we’ve never had – or may never again see – the opportunity which the current situation presents us with: to do the right thing by our people and demonstrate how their success is so closely linked with that of the businesses we lead.”

Pets at Home and Tesco are just two examples of retailers that are already doing exactly that when it matters most.

Even the world’s most financially secure businesses like Amazon are likely to find that, both during and after the pandemic, company culture matters more than ever to their staff, shoppers and shareholders.

Cash will inevitably be king as we move through this crisis. But culture is becoming increasingly crucial.