Sep 1, 2026 · 43 min · 12 segments
What does it actually take to build a culture people want to be part of? Shelly McElroy has spent over a decade answering that question. Founder of Dream Culture, International Entrepreneur of the…
Shelly McElroyGuestAniaHostThat's amazing.
And so, well, you said that role was created for you and you went in there, but was there a moment, like something during your career that made you think like having a company around building a dream culture would actually be important? Like, was there any moments that led to that?
And it's the surprise if somebody leaves your business and you have no idea that's coming.
Like, where was the conversation? What did you not pick up on? How could you have helped? How could you have better supported? You know, when you think about what is culture, culture is the behavior that we accept, right? And it's the environment that we create together.
So even if you're the business owner and I work for you, I still have a role to play in creating the culture as much as you, you know, how we talk to each other, how we communicate, how we challenge what we're doing.
And I think to boil it down to a few key things like the culture, do people feel welcome? Do they feel safe? Do they feel valued? And do they feel respected? Yeah.
And if you can get alignment on that and get people to innovate and come up with great ideas and have a good work ethic, like the results often just pay for themselves if it's a great place to work.
Well, I completely agree with you.
So, well, that's a great jump on dream culture itself.
Can you tell us a bit more?
Like I could see white space in the industry where people want to create a culture, but they don't know how to or where to start.
And I think through the growth in particular that I experienced at Maryvale, and then I worked at an external provider partnering with businesses, not only in hospitality, in government and education, I worked with the Australian Antarctic division.
Like I got insight into these amazing companies that are doing incredible things and all of them, I could see the threads of where capability fell over.
I could see where the white space was, where I could add enormous value in business.
And DreamCulture was created to help businesses create a culture by design rather than just get what you get by default.
Well, that's important because there is all sorts of things out there.
So it's really good when you have a great like company culture.
Yeah.
It changes everything.
And you are building that company with Julie Devon.
That's amazing.
And so, well, you said that role was created for you and you went in there, but was there a moment, like something during your career that made you think like having a company around building a dream culture would actually be important? Like, was there any moments that led to that?
And it's the surprise if somebody leaves your business and you have no idea that's coming.
Like, where was the conversation? What did you not pick up on? How could you have helped? How could you have better supported? You know, when you think about what is culture, culture is the behavior that we accept, right? And it's the environment that we create together.
So even if you're the business owner and I work for you, I still have a role to play in creating the culture as much as you, you know, how we talk to each other, how we communicate, how we challenge what we're doing.
And I think to boil it down to a few key things like the culture, do people feel welcome? Do they feel safe? Do they feel valued? And do they feel respected? Yeah.
And if you can get alignment on that and get people to innovate and come up with great ideas and have a good work ethic, like the results often just pay for themselves if it's a great place to work.
Well, I completely agree with you.
So, well, that's a great jump on dream culture itself.
Can you tell us a bit more?
Like I could see white space in the industry where people want to create a culture, but they don't know how to or where to start.
And I think through the growth in particular that I experienced at Maryvale, and then I worked at an external provider partnering with businesses, not only in hospitality, in government and education, I worked with the Australian Antarctic division.
Like I got insight into these amazing companies that are doing incredible things and all of them, I could see the threads of where capability fell over.
I could see where the white space was, where I could add enormous value in business.
And DreamCulture was created to help businesses create a culture by design rather than just get what you get by default.
Well, that's important because there is all sorts of things out there.
So it's really good when you have a great like company culture.
Yeah.
It changes everything.
And you are building that company with Julie Devon.
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