Company culture is an aspect other than a mere PR tactic. Any executive chamber is aware of its importance regarding long-term upshots, such as employee engagement, retention, and performance.
Why is Company Culture Important?
While laying out its apparent benefits for simple analysis, it is easier for CEOs to become victims of its first-time attraction.
Another inconsistency one might confront while formulating a perfect company culture strategy is that it is ambiguous or abstract, for the lack of a better word. As important as it seems to the company’s strategic cabinet, it is quite a challenge to tone down the impacts of the aforementioned problem and come up with a killer solution.
Regardless of its vague theme, it is not an impossible feat to craft a plan that keeps people engaged and centred on the task of making their organization distinct and better.
As much it is HR’s headache, it is their responsibility to adapt to a set of creative rules to develop a culture that nurtures the creativity and healthy being of all the employees involved in the grand setup.
A reputed university report, content workers, are 12% more likely to be productive, and fewer content folks are 10% less effective. What needs to be assured out of this environment is positive and supportive. And the department responsible for shaping such policies and plans that address all the psychological aspects of the company is HR, and the change management prospect also comes under its umbrella of responsibilities.
What is Company Culture in People Process?
Historically speaking, the term traces its origin back to the early ’80s. However, the popularity of this piece of abstraction spread like wildfire in recent years among the financial and executive chiefs of emerging and successful organizations.
The artistic and appealing distinct brand identity of any organization is a reflection of how coordinated and happy the employees are, a metric of how good a company engagement is, and how elegantly poised they are to carry the collective goals towards completion.
The entire theme of company culture is better described under the term “personality of a company” by the employees themselves. Its recognition among employees and executives has acquired a new level for a company as big as Google to introduce the ‘flat hierarchy’ concept.
In times of transition, better termed as mergers and acquisitions, its importance grows manifold because of the uncertainty of the new environment and other lingering doubts.
It is widely held, and rightly so, that founders and others in top managerial roles lay out the blueprint of what dimension the company will proceed in. HR, however, preserves that ambitious voice of the company and holds the responsibility of nurturing it, making sure that all the employees adhere to these core values in the workplace.
Critical Factors in Company Culture
There are some objective ways through which a company culture can be segmented for better comprehension of its strategic layout.
Let’s look at their brief introduction
1) Company Structure
This factor addresses the essence of how a company is run and the question regarding its structural formulation.
Does it have top-tier executives, or is it a flat hierarchy? How will the communication process occur among all the stakeholders subject to the company? How detailed is the entire structure of the whole company?
All such queries intend to find out about different segments of the company and their mutual coordination.
2) Nature of Work delivery
How are the outputs of varying projects delivered?
Here, HR establishes if the quality of the whole project is compensated by the principle of constantly feeding the beast, as in speedily providing the output.
3) Overall Functionality of Company
The factor itself is self-explanatory as it highlights the primary function of the company. Functions such as marketing, customer service, and development are a few examples of what companies offer.
For example, an SEO company will focus mainly on marketing and output it as a service they offer.
Many companies by go the motto of harnessing an environment that allows the necessary freedom and creative will of employees to outgrow itself and add to the company’s productivity. In contrast, others are hyperfocused on the nature of task completion and how quality work can be delivered in bulk.
4) Sub-cultural setup
The subcultural setup allows multiple departments of the company to be productive and content in their habitat that can potentially be merged into other departments.
Here, the scrutinizing aspect confirms that all the subcultural arenas harbour the company’s core values and by no means represent a distinct commodity that can cause a terrible dissociation with other segments of the company.
Use of Pulse Surveys in Company Culture
A pulse survey is an HR coined term connoted with the act of a doctor checking a pulse to gain the idea as to a patient’s health.
The survey aims to accumulate insights into the temperament of employees, their wellbeing, dedication to the tasks at hand, and ability to get behind the company’s motto.
As it is well established that in such surveys, employees’ experiences are peeked into, and a handful of intelligent readings can help uplift the research material of the strategy to new horizons, which bestows the HR a way to craft a culture where diversity is answered imaginatively and inside frictions among subcultures are dissolved into healthy relations.
We know that disagreements are signs of a thoughtful organization, and addressing them requires the art of delicacy. HR has a responsibility of devising a culture that comforts all the psychological and creative needs of employees.
Benefits of HR surveys
1) It is scrutinized how the company values are in agreement with company culture.
2) Another type of survey makes sure they take into account the diverse opinions of employees.
3) A survey is carried out to gauge how content and emotionally at peace employees are as a metric of their productive self.
4) These responses are merged, and a comprehensive report is prepared that acts as a source of detailed and intricate strategies.
5) Another old-school technique that still works is the real-time feedback of employees regarding the company’s culture.
