Elements of organizational culture

A company’s culture is made up of aspects that are respected and followed. Understanding the interrelationships among cultural differences, communication behaviors, and organizational relationships both inside and outside of the organization is the foundation of the emerging challenges for organizing and communicating in a global/local operational environment (think globally, act locally). A manager’s challenge is to assess the current organizational culture and communication practices and to develop communication skills that will enable them to exhibit the insight, sensitivity, vision, adaptability, focus, patience, and global-localism necessary in today’s complex working environment.

What is organizational culture?

Organizational culture is the collection of values, expectations, and practices that guide and inform the actions of all team members. Think of it as the collection of traits that make your company what it is. A great culture exemplifies positive traits that lead to improved performance, while a dysfunctional company culture brings out qualities that can hinder even the most successful organizations.

Those companies that have a defined culture will often find that their employees will develop better relationships and will be able to work better together to reach the long-term goals that are defined in the mission statement.

Overall, company culture can really improve the loyalty that staff feels towards the company that they work for. They will want to work harder for the company, which increases productivity and makes the company an overall better place to work. By cultivating healthy company culture, you will inevitably increase employee engagement.

Elements of organizational culture

Recognition

A successful corporate culture is largely influenced by recognition, which is also the main factor in employee engagement. Recognition helps team members feel supported and like they are a part of something bigger, even though the most trying moments, like many organizations around the world experienced when adjusting to the new normal from the COVID-19 pandemic era. Every worker wants to feel acknowledged for their efforts. When they do, important performance factors like employee retention, productivity, and engagement increase.

While some businesses view employee recognition as something that should only be given during exceptional occasions like anniversary celebrations, this strategy falls flat with staff members. Instead, strive to establish a culture of regular financial and interpersonal praise from the top down and the bottom up. 

Another excellent strategy is to identify behaviors that fit the culture you wish to promote. Your business will be on the right track to creating a successful employee recognition program if you adopt an employee recognition platform that enables all team members to interact with one another’s recognitions and award redeemable reward points.

Values

Try to integrate your corporate culture with your company’s basic principles. Start by outlining the core principles that guide your business. Use clear wording that all staff members can understand. Encourage team members to follow these ideals daily. Of course, saying this will have little impact, so start by teaching managers and executives how to regularly demonstrate your company’s beliefs through their actions. Soon, the rest of the crew will do the same.

Worker Voice

Employees who work for companies with strong cultures feel free to voice their genuine opinions. Their companies can then review this feedback and use the insights gained to continually enhance both the employee experience and business outcomes.

Make sure managers understand how to welcome and encourage employee feedback while also offering private avenues for anonymous feedback, such as pulse surveys and always-on HR chatbots. Utilize your employee engagement tool to compile the data, identify areas for development, and direct managers in acting jointly with their teams.

Leadership

Your company is governed by your leaders. You’ll be successful if your workers have faith in the leadership of your business and their supervisors. However, be cautious if there is a disconnect because managers are responsible for 70% of the variation in employee engagement. The adage that “workers don’t leave firms; managers do” is true. Make sure your leaders set a good example for the rest of the team in all aspects of the business, from rewards to wellness, and emphasize the importance of continuing two-way communication with all team members.

Belonging

Any great culture is built on a strong sense of belonging. However, creating one calls for a multifaceted strategy. Employers put a high priority on the five pillars of belonging by creating environments where staff members feel recognized, included, supported, and connected:

• A fantastic onboarding process is necessary for welcoming new employees, as is ensuring that they are immediately in line with your company’s culture.
• When a business takes the time to ask for honest input and then incorporates it into their organizational DNA, team members feel understood.
• Any organization should make diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) a top priority. Establishing employee resource groups (ERGs) is crucial to assisting DEI.
• Employees can’t help but feel supported when they are given the freedom to do their best work, appreciated for it, and guided rather than micromanaged.
• A varied workforce, an accepting and psychologically safe work environment, and team building exercises are all excellent strategies to create the conditions for healthy relationships amongst team members.

Types of organizational culture

Type 1: Clan Culture

Teamwork and mentoring are the main priorities. ”We are all in this together”

A clan culture is people-focused in that it creates a feeling of family within the workplace. Every person is respected in this highly collaborative workplace, and communication is given top attention. A horizontal organization and clan culture are frequently combined, which lowers barriers between the C-suite and staff and promotes mentorship possibilities. These businesses are very adaptable because they are action-oriented and flexible with change.

Benefits

Clan cultures have high levels of employee engagement, and content workers are more likely to have content customers. A clan culture has a huge potential for market growth because of its highly adaptable environment.

Cons

As a business grows, it might be challenging to maintain a familial corporate culture. Additionally, a horizontal leadership structure can make daily activities seem disorganized and unfocused.

Where to Find Clan Culture

It’s not surprising that startups and smaller companies frequently have clan cultures. Young organizations that are just getting started place a strong emphasis on cooperation and communication, leadership looks to employees for input and ideas, and businesses place a high priority on team building.

The success of businesses with a high share of remote workers, like the HR technology company Hireology, depends on developing an open and communicative workplace culture. Joel Schlundt, vice president of engineering at Hireology, noted that when you have a blended team, your local workers may assist in bridging differences and developing empathy. To help workers comprehend and value the duties of their peers, the team organized job exchanges.

How Can You Foster This Culture Within Your Company? 

Your employees should be your priority if you want to foster a clan culture within your business. A good clan culture depends on open communication, so let your staff know that you welcome criticism. Find out what they value, what they want to see changed, and what suggestions they must advance the business. Step two is to consider and implement their suggestions.

Type 2: Culture of Democracy

Risk-taking and innovation are the main priorities. “Risk it for the cookie.”

Adhocracy cultures are founded on innovation and adaptability, according to information about them. These are the businesses at the forefront of their sector, searching for the next great thing before anybody else has even begun to pose the proper questions. They must take chances to do that. Adhocracy cultures respect individualism in that they empower staff members to think creatively and contribute their ideas. Since this sort of organizational culture falls under the category of external focus and distinction, new ideas must be connected to market expansion and business success.

Benefits

An adhocracy culture helps organizations gain notoriety and strong profit margins. With the intention of breaking the mold, employees remain motivated. Additionally, possibilities for professional development are simple to justify when a focus is placed on innovation and creativity.

Cons

Because risk is a risk, there is always a potential that a new endeavor may fail and possibly harm your organization. As the demand to generate original ideas grows, adhocracy cultures can also encourage rivalry among employees.

Where Adhocracy Culture Can Be Found?

Consider Apple or Google; these businesses represent the adhocracy culture’s exterior focus and risk-taking characteristics. They thrive on originality and doing things that haven’t been done before. In the rapidly evolving tech sector, where new products are created and launched on a regular basis, adhocracy culture is prevalent.

How Can You Foster This Culture Within Your Company? 

Depending on your sector, creating a genuine adhocracy culture that embraces a high-risk business plan could be challenging. However, putting a strategy into place and holding brainstorming sessions gives staff members the chance to present innovative ideas that can advance the business. Teams are encouraged to go beyond the box by rewarding winning ideas.

Type 3. Market Culture

Growth and competition are the main priorities. “We’re in it to win it”

Market culture places an emphasis on profitability. Each position has a goal that is in line with the organization’s overall mission, and there are frequently numerous tiers of separation between employees and leadership roles. Everything is evaluated with the bottom line in mind. These are performance-driven organizations that prioritize external success over interior fulfillment. In a market culture, getting things done, hitting goals, and achieving quotas are important.

Benefits

Businesses with strong market cultures are prosperous and effective. Due to the organization’s overall external focus, there is a major goal that all employees can support and work toward.

Cons

On the other hand, because each decision, project, and job within the organization is assigned a number, it can be challenging for employees to actively engage with their work and fulfill their professional purpose. Burnout is a possibility in this hostile and hurried workplace.

Where to Find Market Culture?

A market culture business wants to be the greatest in its field. Due to this, these are frequently more established, larger businesses. They want to compete and outperform everyone who might be comparable.

Employees that have clear objectives are better able to deliver exceptional customer service for an industry leader like Bluecore, a retail marketing platform that makes use of AI technology. According to Kim Surko, vice president of customer success, “Our team is focused on its goals, and we are motivated through remuneration structure and recognition.” We may use our personalities and values to establish how we will achieve those goals using that foundation as a starting point.

How Can You Foster This Culture Within Your Company? 

Start by assessing each position inside your organization because every element of market culture is connected to the business’s bottom line. Determine the return on investment for each role and set appropriate production standards. Top performers should be rewarded to promote similar work.

Type 4: Hierarchy Culture

Structure and stability are the main priorities. “Do it correctly.”

Organizations with hierarchical cultures conform to the conventional corporate structure. These businesses place a strong emphasis on internal structure, separating employees from the top management through a distinct chain of command and various management echelons. Along with a strict structure, there is frequently a clothing code that employees must adhere to. Hierarchy cultures are stable and risk-averse because they have a set manner of doing things.

Benefits

Hierarchy cultures have a clear direction since the internal organization is prioritized. The fundamental goals of the company are catered to by clearly defined processes.

Cons

Because hierarchy cultures are so rigid, they don’t encourage much creativity, which makes it difficult for these businesses to change with the times. The company prioritizes the corporation over the individual, which may or may not promote employee input.

Hierarchy cultures can be found in both traditional businesses and those that provide customer service, like fast food restaurants, at both ends of the corporate spectrum. These are businesses that have a laser-like focus on how daily operations are carried out and have no immediate plans to alter them.

How Can You Foster This Culture Within Your Company? 

The first step in creating a culture of hierarchy is to streamline your operations. Fill any gaps in the chain of command if there are any. Make sure each team and department have distinct long- and short-term goals by taking them into consideration.

Job searchers can tell almost immediately what your corporate culture says about your team and your values. Consider your current organizational culture and what matters most to your business. Where are you on the same page and where do you need to make improvements? Even though you have some control over your organizational culture, bear in mind that when you bring on new team members, the dynamic at work will change.

Importance of organizational culture

1. Your culture transforms your company into a team

Successful organizational cultures unite and maintain alignment across your workforce. When your culture is obvious, people from various viewpoints can unite behind it for a common goal. Your company’s culture establishes standards for how employees should act, collaborate, and perform as a team.

In this manner, culture can help to blur the lines between siloed teams, direct decision-making, and enhance overall workflow. On the other hand, a poisonous organizational culture has the power to have the exact opposite effect.

2. Organizational cultures are under the control of the companies and they can assess them and make the required adjustments

One of the advantages of corporate culture that businesses can take advantage of is the ability to change. To evaluate the current state of the corporate culture, they can conduct a cultural audit. This procedure offers a way to assess the company culture as it stands now, identifies any gaps, and develop a strategy to solve any issues. The following components may be part of the cultural audit:

Define the culture of your business. Do all your staff members understand the corporate culture? How is the business culture introduced to new team members?

Comprehension: Find out how well employees are aware of the corporate culture. Send them a survey about the employee experience. Includes explicit inquiries about your brand’s values to gauge how well they are perceived.

Consistency: Even the most robust company culture can be lost if managers and staff members don’t constantly act in accordance with these ideals. When members of your team fail to consistently demonstrate these principles, what can you do to remind them of their importance?

3. The workplace culture can inspire employees to become passionate supporters

An advantage of a supportive organizational culture is motivating employees to act as brand ambassadors. Employees are interested in earning nice perks and a fair wage for their work. When they go to work, they want to believe that what they do matters. By fostering the corporate culture at work and in their free time, people can feel important.

Recognizing employees who perform their jobs well is the first step in developing employee advocates. Give them frequent and open praise. Always give fair credit to others. In promotional materials and on the company blog, highlight your personnel. Get a quote from them regarding what they enjoy and regarding a job at the organization.

4. Your brand identity is enhanced by corporate culture

To differentiate your business from the competitors, you want to create a strong corporate culture. As opposed to one product, the corporate brand describes the entire organization. For instance, the company name or brand comes to mind before any of the items whether you think of “Apple,” “Nike,” or “Tesla.” This illustration demonstrates the value of a strong brand identity.

For instance, a soft drink manufacturer’s organizational culture will be significantly dissimilar from that of an insurance company. The insurance provider will present itself to customers as a reliable source for all their insurance requirements. The soft drink company’s brand will emphasize the enjoyment of recreational activities.

5. The company’s values are identified by its culture

One of the most significant advantages of organizational culture is this concept. What is the primary function of the company? What types of clients does it cater to? How does it approach achieving its objectives? The responses to those queries aid in defining the corporate culture.

Each company’s culture might be compared to a unique personality. There are variations among them. The corporate culture must complement the goods and services the business offers. An auto repair shop could wish to emphasize the importance of having knowledgeable experts who can identify issues immediately. Accident repair shops inform clients about their loaner automobile service and offer to deal with the insurance company on their behalf.

6.  Strong organizational culture allows you to retain your top talent

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that staff members who feel like they belong to a community rather than just a cog in the machine are more inclined to stick with your business. That is what the majority of job seekers seek in an employer.

Any high performer will tell you that the people are what keep them at their organization. It’s due to the strong appeal of people-centered business culture. It enhances engagement, offers a distinctive employee experience, and strengthens the sense of community among your workforce. Hiring for cultural fit is one strategy for luring great performers who are innate culture champions.

In conclusion, it is crucial to note that the constant change in corporate culture is a good thing. The societies that advance and change are the societies that endure. While essential values should not change, it is important to assess goals, processes, and the company’s image incrementally.

Change is desirable and important, but before you decide to alter something about the corporate culture, you must first establish a clear, compelling vision and a well-thought-out strategy. Before your employees can feel confident in the decision, they must first perceive that management views the change as positive and important and that management is confident in that decision.