Company culture affects every aspect of an organisation, from its employees to processes, revenue and the bottom line. Company culture is crucial for business success, prove the following statistics:
- More than half of employees have quit a job, or are likely to consider quitting, if work culture is compromised by office politics.
- 86% of potential employee candidates are not likely to apply for an organization that has a negative reputation among former employees or general public. 65% employees are more likely to quit their jobs if they feel their company has garnered a bad reputation on social media and news because of bad business practices. (Source: The Center for Sales Strategy)
- Over 50% executive are of the opinion that corporate culture has an impact on organizational growth rate, revenue, and employee creativity and productivity. (Source: bonfyre website)
Why is Company Culture Important?
It is obvious from the above statistics that corporate culture is important. But, why is it important?
- Attracting new talent is easier with a positive culture backing the company. If you think potential hires are not that important, take notice of this statistic – organizations with talented employees can witness 33% higher revenue. Talented managers, in particular, can generate 27% greater revenue per employee. (Statistics Source: The Center for Sales Strategy)
- Employees of a company with a positive work culture are more likely to experience job satisfaction.
When employees are confident that their well-being is important to employers and is being taken care of efficiently, they are happier at the workplace and are more productive. Such happy employees translate into a committed and loyal workforce for the organization.
- A healthy work culture fosters a strong team spirit as well as individuality among employees. As a result, highly productive work approaches such as collaboration and open communications occur organically.
- A positive work culture lowers workplace stress for employees. Such workplaces witness employees with excellent physical health and morale.
Some actions that companies undertake to create a strong work culture include appreciation and recognition for excellent performances, regular employee benefits and perks, and access to opportunities that make employees contribute to a greater cause such as community support initiatives.
How to Address Company Culture?
Organizations can fail to create a culture that is respected by their employees because of a failure to address certain aspects of culture creation and management. Given here are key points that need to be addressed to lay the base for a transformative company culture:
Define your Company Culture
National culture, dress codes and employee engagement have often been the basis for defining a company culture. But, with organisations becoming more diverse and inclusive, company cultures too need to take the practical road. They should go beyond definitions that are merely physical descriptions of employees.
To create an enduring company culture, it should be based on the organization’s vision, mission and values. The CEO of the company and senior leadership must work together to define the company culture.
Assess Organisation’s Degree of Urgency
Degree of urgency refers to the speed with which an organization wants to drive its decision-making process and innovation. Degree of urgency can be a choice that an organization makes consciously, or it could be forced on companies due to market conditions.
Understanding the degree of urgency is crucial because it sets the tone for organizational work processes.
If your organisation has a high degree of urgency, then work processes need to be dynamic and paced higher for rapid realization. Response to changing market conditions needs to be rapid. The company culture needs to be such that it facilitates such high degree of urgency.
If you have a moderate degree of urgency, a balanced pace for work processes is enough. Low degree of urgency needs a slower pace. Such cultures follow a methodical work process.
Establish Work Processes
Clear rules must be established about work processes and the acceptable methods to get them done. A thorough understanding of key operational elements such as management practices and working methods is important to create work processes that are practically viable on a daily basis.
Consider some examples of work elements that need to be defined during creation of work process:
- Who should make the decisions, the teams involved in the project, or an authorized executive?
- How to assign accountability – on an individual basis or a team basis?
- Should processes be task-driven or people-driven?
- Task-driven cultures emphasize processes and tasks when making decisions. People-driven cultures make people a priority while making decisions.
- What should be the core functional areas of the organisation? An R&D company, for example, will have research and development as its core functional area. For some businesses, the core area might be marketing or engineering while for some, it could be service (hospitality ventures, for example).
A company culture must include its core functional area in its culture definition. Such clarity prevents confusion, differing employee perceptions, and puts the entire company on the same page regarding the core area.
- What type of incentives should be awarded to employees to encourage productivity? Emotional, financial or a mix?
One way to establish work processes is to involve employees. Conduct surveys and interviews to obtain insights. Having a focus group review your work process and obtaining its feedback can also be considered.
86% of employees working in organizations with a strong work culture feel their top management listens to them. (Source: As Published on Forbes Website) So, involving employees at the early stage of culture creation is in itself a sign of a positive work culture.
Role Model the Required Cultural Behaviour
Role modeling behaviours aligning with your company culture must start from the top. The senior-most leadership needs to set the example for such behaviors so that they cascade to the lowest rung of the organisation.
Leadership can foster cultural adherence by employees by taking the time to share its stories of such adherence. Such sharing is important to engage and inspire employees.
In addition to role modeling, reinforcements through conscious branding such that it reflects the cultural elements, signposts and other symbols reminding of the values intrinsic to the company culture, can be used.
Another way to foster the required cultural behavior is to include the values in trainings undertaken by your company to impart leadership skills or other skills. Workplace coaching & consultancy and psychology based training therapy can also help instill cultural values in your employees.
Identify Culture Ambassadors
Culture Ambassadors are people that have a deep understanding of, and respect for, your company culture, and strictly follow it. Discover such employees and make them change agents. If necessary, impart coaching & consultancy in the workplace to such employees to equip them with leadership skills needed to bring about the required culture change.
In Conclusion
The process of addressing company culture must be led by the senior-most leadership team. An unshakable commitment to creating a positive culture and engaging employees are paramount to the successful creation, implementation and ongoing success of a company culture.
A well-developed coaching & consultancy program can make the transition to cultural requirements easier for your employees. With Pinnacle Wellbeing Services’ experienced team of domain experts, getting employees aligned to company culture is easy and effective. Negative effects of improper culture alignment such as burnout, and conflict and grievance, among employees, can be prevented.
Sources:
https://bonfyreapp.com/blog/8-stats-building-a-corporate-culture
https://pinnaclewellbeingservices.com/corporate-services/coaching-and-consultancy/
