Right from your company’s bottom line, your employees’ happiness and productivity, to your reputation in the industry, everything depends on the culture of your organisation. It acts as an arm of employer branding or corporate team building, and goes ahead to maintain employee productivity as well as their mindsets. It also attracts suitable talent, thereby increasing the employee retention rate.
In fact, Builtin’s statistics on culture states that almost 46 percent of candidates consider corporate culture as a top priority while applying for a job. And because the most important aspects of the company are at stake, culture must be paid special attention to. But while investing in culture is the first step, maintaining it is even more critical.
Imbibing Culture-Building As a Regular Practice
Investing in culture-building is not something that can be sidelined after a first few checks. Neither can it be checked off as a one-time effort. It needs to be monitored and analysed regularly to see if it’s aligned with the original concept and structure. If not, years later the essence of the company will fade, and you might experience that the place just doesn’t feel the same anymore. The ideal thing to do here is to frequently track and check up on the company culture with quarterly or bi-annual pulse surveys.
Facilitate regular engagement activities that motivate employees as well as keep them enthusiastic and committed. Which means that they’re aware of the values and goals that the company holds dear and work towards attaining them. Not to mention, leading to a low attrition rate and hence, a lower requirement for on-going talent recruitment.
Hosting team bonding activities from time to time helps strengthen collaboration amongst employees and maintain harmony at the workplace, adding to a holistic and healthy company culture. Even consistent learning and development sessions aid not only in terms of culture but also as a step towards growth.
What Affects Company Culture?
While culture depends on certain core values and expected behavioural traits originally thought of by the founding members, some change is bound to happen as the company moves forward. Two of the most important aspects being - people and industry trends.
When teams start to expand, it creates room for differing thoughts, behaviours, and goals. Culture begins to mould itself automatically, especially as the current team moves up the ladder and their perspectives change. Or when the old talent moves out, taking a part of the values and culture with them. Also, when new talent is hired they come with their own set of fresh ideas and outlook. The original culture blends into this and transforms itself, rapidly, but silently. Hence, maintaining culture is an effort that every organisation should take, in order to ensure zero workplace chaos. After all, culture is a shared perception and it will only thrive with frequent team bonding activities.
Every company over time realizes that a change is unavoidable in the way of doing business. With technology and innovation come a new set of expectations and this requires a company culture to be accommodating as well as adapting. According to findings based on corporate beliefs and culture surveyed by Deloitte's chairman, a whopping 94 percent of corporate executives think that a strong company culture is a key contributor towards success. Which makes it even more necessary to have a leadership team that is willing to adapt as per the happenings of the industry which may affect business growth. Here, the first step is awareness of new technologies - especially to increase productivity and make work-life easier.
The most important thing to remember - this is a continuous process.
Certain Things Are Constant
Irrespective of industry trends, business changes or even with a change in teams, certain aspects of culture don’t [and shouldn’t] change. Like being empathetic, and having a people-first approach is something that every corporate culture consulting firm will advise you. Another aspect that every industry or organisation must consider top priority is to ensure a culture that works towards being inclusive - this is especially important as a diverse workforce may take time to adjust. No matter how competitive the industry is, company culture should be positive in order for it to thrive. And hence, it’s crucial that every individual in the team keeps the culture in check. Maintaining a positive culture cannot be a one time fix but instead, requires care and attention in order for it to bear fruit. Like in this case, nurturing a positive work culture will have an impact on employee productivity and engagement, which means better customer satisfaction, and ultimately, growth in business.