Organizational Culture

Introduction

Organizational culture, also known as company culture, is defined as the shared values, attitudes and practices that characterize an organization. It’s the personality of your company, and it plays a large part in your employees’ overall satisfaction.  **The culture reflects how employees, customers, vendors, and stakeholders experience the organization and its brand.

In short, the rules, attitudes, and beliefs that guide how individuals interact with one another and carry out their tasks inside an organization can be summed up as organizational culture. It comprises the expectations, moral standards, and intangible elements that impact how employees interact with one another and carry out their everyday tasks, among other things.

Organizational culture is difficult to quantify as it has no physical manifestations, yet it is found in so many facets within the organization including decision making, communication systems, leadership styles, and corporate environment.

Qualities of a Great Organizational Culture

Every organization’s culture is different, and it’s important to retain what makes your company unique. However, the cultures of high-performing organizations consistently reflect certain qualities which include:

Alignment comes when the company’s objectives and its employees’ motivations are all pulling in the same direction. Exceptional organizations work to build continuous alignment to their vision, purpose, and goals.

• Appreciation can take many forms: a public kudos, a note of thanks, or a promotion. A culture of appreciation is one in which all team members frequently provide recognition and thanks for the contributions of others.
• Trust is vital to an organization. With a culture of trust, team members can express themselves and rely on others to have their back when they try something new.
• Performance is key, as great companies create a culture that means business. In these companies, talented employees motivate each other to excel, and, as shown above, greater profitability and productivity are the results.
• Resilience is a key quality in highly dynamic environments where change is continuous. A resilient culture will teach leaders to watch for and respond to change with ease.
• Teamwork encompasses collaboration, communication, and respect between team members. When everyone on the team supports each other, employees will get more done and feel happier while doing it.
• Integrity, like trust, is vital to all teams when they rely on each other to make decisions, interpret results, and form partnerships. Honesty and transparency are critical components of this aspect of culture.
• Innovation leads organizations to get the most out of available technologies, resources, and markets. A culture of innovation means that you apply creative thinking to all aspects of your business, even your own cultural initiatives.
• ****Psychological safety provides the support employees need to take risks and provide honest feedback. Remember that psychological safety starts at the team level, not the individual level, so managers need to take the lead in creating a safe environment where everyone feels comfortable contributing

Types of Organizational Culture

Researchers Robert E. Quinn and Kim S. Cameron of the University of Michigan identified four primary categories of organizational culture based on their analysis of what makes organizations successful. From a list of 39 characteristics, the researchers distinguished two primary polarities: (1) internal integration and focus vs exterior differentiation and emphasis, and (2) adaptability and discretion versus stability and control.

1. Clan Culture

Primary Focus: Mentorship and teamwork.

Motto: “We’re all in this together.”

A clan culture is people-focused in the sense that the company feels family-like. This is a highly collaborative work environment where every individual is valued and communication is a top priority. Clan culture is often paired with a horizontal structure, which helps to break down barriers between the C-suite and employees, and it encourages mentorship opportunities. Organization’s with clan culture are action-oriented and embrace change, a testament to their highly flexible nature.

2. Adhocracy Culture

Primary Focus: Risk-taking and innovation.

Motto: “Risk it to get the biscuit.”

Adhocracy cultures are rooted in innovation and adaptability. These are the companies that are on the cutting-edge of their industry — they’re looking to develop the next big thing before anyone else has even started asking the right questions. To do so, they need to take risks. Adhocracy cultures value individuality in the sense that employees are encouraged to think creatively and bring their ideas to the table. Because this type of organizational culture falls within the external focus and differentiation category, new ideas need to be tied to market growth and company success.

3. Market Culture

Primary Focus: Competition and growth.

Motto: “We’re in it to win it.”

Market culture prioritizes profitability. Everything is evaluated with the bottom line in mind; each position has an objective that aligns with the company’s larger goal, and there are often several degrees of separation between employees and leadership roles. These are results-oriented organizations that focus on external success rather than internal satisfaction. A market culture stresses the importance of meeting quotas, reaching targets and getting results.

4. Hierarchy Culture

Primary Focus: Structure and stability.

Motto: “Get it done right.”

Companies with hierarchy cultures adhere to the traditional corporate structure. These are companies focused on internal organization by way of a clear chain of command and multiple management tiers that separate employees and leadership. In addition to a rigid structure, there’s often a dress code for employees to follow. Hierarchy cultures have a set way of doing things, which makes them stable and risk-averse.

The Importance of Organizational Culture

Having a positive organizational culture is important for reasons that are discussed below in more detail:

1. Attracting Talent: Companies with a strong company culture help in attracting potential employees. This in turn creates and enhances the image of the company and thus makes it easy to attract the best talent.
2. Boosting Employee Engagement: A culture has a direct impact on employee engagement. An enhancement of culture leads to an enhancement of employees to work harder as long as their values are embedded within the company.
3. Improving Performance: A shared culture promotes commitment towards the objectives of the organization which enhances performance in all the teams. The employees pursue agreed-upon objectives and this enhances performance and teamwork.
4. Fostering Innovation: A conducive environment where ideas are shared and risks taken tends to encourage employees to share ideas and inventions. A strong culture encourages employees to take calculated risks and hence nobody fears taking action because they don’t want to fail.
5. Managing Change Effectively: Managing and coping with change becomes easier in an organization that has a strong culture irrespective of the nature of change or the factors causing it. Employees, who are passionate about one culture, tend to be more flexible and open to change than those who are not having such exposure to such a culture.

What Does Organizational Culture Do?

Organizational culture serves several key functions:

1. Improves Employee’s Behavior: It provides a structure within which employees need to operate. Employees through clearer values and behavioral norms, suitably know which tasks and decisions are permissible within the workplace.
2. Shaping Identity: It helps employees to identify with the organization, and in so doing, contributes to a unified identity among employees. Employees become more invested in the goals of the organisation and hence the loyalty is higher.
3. Communication: People tend to perform to the defined culture and in turn a cultural system constructs the interactions between people and their activities. Collaborative, open culturally enhances radical thinking while collaborations, hierarchical cultures create boundaries of communication.
4. Increases Organizational Culture: Culture promotes stability and maintaining some order in the operations of the institutional apparatus as individuals work toward ensuring that they share a similar orientation even when changes occur.
5. Morale of Employees and Retention Attempting to retain such employees is however difficult due to lack of unity in the work place which consequently lowers the level of satisfaction in the workplace. A culture that promotes higher levels of job satisfaction leads to lower employee turnover.

Future Outlook

A significant change on how organizational culture itself will manifest will be the orientation toward employees’ health care, diversity, inclusivity, and hybrid work patterns. Companies are not detaching from remote work or other flexible scenarios, and will for this reason have to foster connections with more isolated folks. Some of it will come from technology, mainly AI and other digital tools, aiming at increasing cultures from an analytical approach and targeted at employees. Moreover, cultures with purpose are more attractive to this generation workforce whereby companies’ purpose and structures are built around social accountability and sustainability principles.

Conclusion

Organizational culture is a fundamental building block in any business. It sets the stage for the workplace of its employees, and most vitally, it affects the way that employees behave, engage, and become satisfied. The defining strength that organisations experience when they have strong and positive culture in place is very essential in determining their survival. As a matter of fact, the people’s recruiting process, their endeavors in that company and their innovative ideas will entirely depend on the culture practiced in the organization.