How content creator Natalie Marshall built her company’s culture from the ground up

Natalie Marshall started creating social media content in 2020 just for fun.

Before long, she became known as “Corporate Natalie.” And what started as a hobby turned into a small business, Corporate Natalie LLC, inclusive of Marshall’s social media platforms, influencer marketing agency, and virtual assistant platform, that she runs as its CEO.

Marshall has picked up many titles along the way, including being boss. She has three full-time and about a half dozen part-time employees, with whom she said she’s collaborated with to create a company culture that values fulfillment.

“It’s important to us that we have a company culture that makes sense, that is beyond just my face on the channels,” Marshall said. “We’ve worked hard to establish what those company values are, and one of those are just that we try to find joy, and we try to find happiness, and we try to find fulfillment across both of our jobs.”

How Marshall built her company’s culture. While it may not be realistic to love your job every day, Marshall said she wants her employees to feel fulfilled at least five workdays each month. She recommended HR pros and other leaders strive for the same with their own workforces.

“HR professionals, if your employees aren’t feeling just baseline satisfaction and fulfillment five days a month, I think it’s important for the company to look inward,” she said. “And, say, ‘What can we do to support these individuals and make them feel that way?’”

While Marshall works closely and meets regularly with each of her team members, she said she also uses quarterly performance reviews to evaluate whether employees are meeting that five-day-a-month metric for fulfillment.

“Our performance reviews go beyond just, ‘What are areas of growth? What do you think you excelled at?’” she said. “We have this extra category of, ‘Tell me about one day that you loved this quarter, and how can we implement more of that next quarter?’”

Goals can change each quarter, Marshall said, but this helps employees reflect on what they love doing, and ensures they have something to be excited about. Since her company is small, she said she can also measure the success of its culture by the amount of laughter coming out of its WeWork room.

“There’s so much doom and gloom online right now about work, quiet quitting, burnout, ‘nobody should love their job,’ and, I don’t disagree that these are real conversations that people are having,” she said. “But I think the pendulum swung so far that we stopped giving people permission to actually enjoy what you do.”

People’s work lives represent just a fraction of who they are as individuals, Marshall said, adding, “I would encourage leaders to allow their employees to do that and express themselves however they see fit.”