Culture as Competitive Advantage in Roofing
Every roofing company offers shingles on roofs. The installation process looks the same. The materials come from the same manufacturers. So why do customers pay more for one company than another? Why do good crews choose one employer over another?
Culture. The companies with strong cultures attract better people, deliver better work, and build better reputations. Culture isn’t soft stuff. It’s competitive advantage.
What Culture Actually Is
Culture isn’t ping pong tables and pizza parties. It’s how things actually get done when nobody’s watching.
Culture shows up in:
- How crews treat job sites
- How salespeople handle objections
- How managers respond to mistakes
- How the company handles customer complaints
- What gets celebrated and what gets tolerated
Culture is the collection of unwritten rules that govern behavior. It’s the answer to “how we do things here.”
Every company has a culture. The question is whether it’s intentional or accidental.
Why Culture Matters in Roofing
Roofing faces unique workforce challenges that make culture especially important.
Labor scarcity: Good crews are hard to find. Culture determines whether you attract and keep them.
Training intensity: It takes months to develop a competent roofer. High turnover wastes this investment. Culture affects retention.
Unsupervised work: Crews work at job sites without constant oversight. Culture determines whether they do the right thing when nobody’s watching.
Safety stakes: Roofing is dangerous. A safety culture prevents injuries. A weak safety culture invites tragedy.
Customer experience: Every crew member represents your brand. Culture determines how they represent you.
The companies that win in roofing will be the ones that build cultures attracting and retaining good people.
The Culture Components
Five components combine to create company culture.
Component 1: Values
Values are the principles that guide decisions and behavior.
Effective values:
- Few in number (3-5 maximum)
- Specific enough to guide behavior
- Genuinely held (not just posted)
- Applied consistently (especially to leadership)
Common roofing company values:
- Craftsmanship: Pride in quality work
- Integrity: Honesty in all dealings
- Safety: Protecting our people
- Teamwork: Winning together
- Customer focus: Delivering what we promise
Values only matter if they influence actual decisions. “We value quality” means nothing if you accept substandard work to meet schedule.
Component 2: Behaviors
Behaviors are the specific actions that reflect values.
The behavior test:
- If you value quality, what specific behaviors demonstrate it?
- If you value integrity, what does integrity look like in everyday situations?
- If you value safety, what behaviors are required and prohibited?
Example behavior definitions:
Value: Quality Behaviors:
- Follow installation specifications exactly
- Inspect work before leaving any job
- Report problems rather than covering them
- Fix issues completely, not temporarily
Each value should have 3-5 specific behaviors that everyone can recognize and practice.
Component 3: Rituals
Rituals are regular practices that reinforce culture.
Common culture-building rituals:
- Daily crew huddles
- Weekly team meetings
- Monthly recognition events
- Quarterly company meetings
- Annual celebrations
What rituals accomplish:
- Bring people together
- Reinforce shared identity
- Communicate what matters
- Create predictable touchpoints
Rituals should feel genuine, not forced. Empty rituals undermine culture rather than building it.
Component 4: Stories
Stories communicate culture more powerfully than statements.
Useful culture stories:
- How the company handled a difficult situation
- Times values were upheld at cost
- Customer experiences that exemplify the mission
- Employee examples of extraordinary behavior
How to use stories:
- Share in meetings and communications
- Include in onboarding
- Reference in feedback and coaching
- Celebrate the heroes in the stories
Stories make abstract values concrete. They answer “what would we do if…”
Component 5: Symbols
Symbols are visible representations of culture.
Symbols in roofing companies:
- Vehicle cleanliness and appearance
- Uniform standards
- Office environment
- Equipment quality
- Marketing materials quality
What symbols communicate:
- Pride and professionalism
- Attention to detail
- Respect for customers
- Investment in the team
Symbols should match stated values. Claiming to value quality while driving beat-up trucks with faded wraps contradicts the message.
Building Intentional Culture
Culture can be shaped deliberately through consistent effort.
Step 1: Define What You Want
Start with clarity about desired culture.
Questions to answer:
- What kind of company do we want to be?
- How should people treat each other?
- How should we treat customers?
- What behaviors are non-negotiable?
- What behaviors are unacceptable?
Write this down. Be specific. Involve your leadership team.
Step 2: Assess Current State
Evaluate where you are versus where you want to be.
Assessment approaches:
- Employee surveys (anonymous)
- Exit interviews analysis
- Customer feedback patterns
- Observation of actual behavior
- Honest self-reflection
Gaps between desired and actual culture become your improvement priorities.
Step 3: Model From the Top
Culture flows from leadership behavior.
Leadership culture responsibilities:
- Live the values visibly
- Make decisions consistent with stated culture
- Hold yourself to the same standards as others
- Acknowledge and correct your own mistakes
- Invest time in culture-building activities
A leader who says one thing and does another destroys culture faster than anything else.
Step 4: Hire for Culture
Skills can be taught. Culture fit is harder to develop.
Culture-focused hiring:
- Define culture criteria for candidates
- Include culture questions in interviews
- Involve team members in assessment
- Check references for cultural behavior
- Prioritize fit in close decisions
A highly skilled person who doesn’t fit culture causes more problems than they solve.
Step 5: Reinforce Continuously
Culture requires constant reinforcement.
Reinforcement mechanisms:
- Recognition of culture-consistent behavior
- Correction of culture-violating behavior
- Stories that celebrate culture exemplars
- Training that develops culture skills
- Compensation tied to culture outcomes
What gets recognized gets repeated. What gets tolerated becomes acceptable.
Culture and Retention
In roofing’s tight labor market, culture is a retention strategy.
What employees want:
- Fair compensation (necessary but not sufficient)
- Respect and dignity
- Growth opportunity
- Pride in their work
- Connection to teammates
- Competent leadership
Strong culture addresses the emotional needs that money alone can’t satisfy.
Retention culture practices:
- Know employees as individuals
- Celebrate milestones and achievements
- Invest in training and development
- Create clear advancement paths
- Handle problems fairly and promptly
- Make employees feel heard
The cost of turnover far exceeds the cost of culture investment.
Culture and Safety
In roofing, safety culture is literally life and death.
Safety culture characteristics:
- Safety as genuine priority, not just talk
- Workers empowered to stop unsafe work
- Near-misses reported without punishment
- Equipment maintained properly
- Training thorough and ongoing
- Leadership visible on safety topics
Building safety culture:
- Daily safety topics in crew huddles
- Immediate response to safety concerns
- Recognition for safety awareness
- Zero tolerance for serious safety violations
- Investment in safety equipment
Safety culture saves lives and reduces costs.
Measuring Culture
How do you know if culture is strong?
Leading indicators:
- Employee survey scores
- Job applicant quality and quantity
- Time to fill open positions
- Training completion rates
- Safety incident rates
Lagging indicators:
- Employee turnover rate
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Online review sentiment
- Callback and complaint rates
- Referral business percentage
Track these metrics over time. Culture improvement should show in the numbers.
Common Culture Mistakes
Mistake 1: Values on wall, not in practice Posted values mean nothing if decisions contradict them.
Mistake 2: Tolerating culture violations from high performers “He’s a jerk but he sells a lot” destroys culture.
Mistake 3: Thinking events equal culture Pizza parties don’t create culture. Consistent behavior creates culture.
Mistake 4: Expecting instant change Culture shifts slowly. Expect 12-24 months for meaningful change.
Mistake 5: Delegation without modeling Culture must be modeled from the top. It cannot be delegated.
Start Here
Culture building starts with clarity and modeling.
Start Here:
- Write your top 3 values and the specific behaviors that demonstrate each.
- Assess honestly: Do your decisions consistently reflect these values?
- Identify one culture gap and one specific action to address it this month.
Culture is competitive advantage hidden in plain sight. The company with strong culture attracts better people, delivers better work, and builds stronger reputation.
You’re building a culture whether intentionally or not. The companies that win choose to build culture deliberately. Start today.