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How to Effect Culture Change in your Organisation

How to Effect Culture Change in your Organisation

HR is often trusted with the responsibility of creating or improving a company’s culture. But what exactly does culture mean? Culture is defined as the values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organisation. With this definition in mind, it’s clear that having the right set of defined values and behaviours is key to driving a company’s success.

Today, an organisation’s culture isn’t something you start to discover on your first day at a new company. With the increased transparency from social media and companies like Glassdoor, a company’s culture is something everyone can access before they accept an offer. This makes it more important than ever to develop the right culture for your organisation.

How culture impacts engagement

Culture is a combination of the ideas and social behaviour that occurs when no one is looking. It’s directly influenced by leadership, as well as the systems and processes that your organisation has in place. Culture drives behaviours in your employees and the kind of culture you have directly impacts an employee’s willingness to go above and beyond. In an organisation with a poor culture, employees may be dissatisfied and disengaged, ultimately affecting their willingness to do even the bare minimum. However, in a company with a positive culture, employees are more likely to be engaged in the company and willing to work harder and at a higher level to achieve the organisation’s goals.

Cultural impact on talent and profitability

Culture is a key consideration when trying to attract top talent to your organisation. With LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and companies like Glassdoor, potential employees can thoroughly research an organisation before accepting a role there. High performing recruits are aware of their value and more and more, are looking for a great company culture, as well as a challenging and rewarding role.

Poor culture can negatively impact a company’s bottom line. Employees who are not engaged with the company are not motivated. Often, this leads to substandard performance and business outcomes.

How to make culture work for you

To create a great company culture in your organisation, you need to clearly identify what is motivating your top employees and create the environment they need to excel.

Research suggests some of the key considerations are work-life balance, flexibility, and transparency around company strategy and purpose. 

Consider an agile hierarchy instead of a traditional one. This design encourages project focus, shared goals and common purpose. It also enables open lines of communication, a free flow of feedback and rewards people for their skills and contribution, rather than their position in the company. A clear sense of purpose is fundamental to engaging and motivating employees. This purpose cultivates not just career ambition, but rather work passion.

If you focus on creating a culture around meaningful work, great management, fantastic environment, growth opportunity and building trust in leadership then you can’t help but to effect positive culture change in your organisation.