What is organisational culture? Organisational culture is the values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organisation. Organisational culture can also include organisation’s expectations, experiences, philosophy, and values that hold it together, and is expressed in its self-image, inner workings, interactions with the outside world, and future expectations. It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid.
Also known as corporate culture, it’s shown in
- The ways the organisation conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, and the wider community
- The extent to which freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas, and personal expression
- How power and information flow through its hierarchy
- Organisational trust in its employees to deliver quality work without helicopter management
- How committed employees are towards collective objectives.
Culture affects the organisation’s productivity and performance, and provides guidelines on customer care and service, product quality and safety, attendance and punctuality, and concern for the environment. It also extends to production-methods, marketing and advertising practices, and to new product creation. Organisational culture is unique for every organisation and one of the hardest things to change.
During research into “Organisational Culture” I discovered on the surface of an organisation to be highly sought after like Google who’s -A Corporate Culture that Employees Stand by.
Google is renowned as an amazing employer with many other organizations trying to mimic it and sets the tone for many of the perks and benefits start-ups are now known for. Googlers are renowned to be driven, talented and among the best of the best.
But when I did some “Googling” I found articles form 2019 saying the following about Google’s internal culture;
- Google has been struggling with internal and external criticism over the past several years on a variety of issues, from lacking diversity in its workforce to its work in China.
- One major source of those issues is the company’s acceptance of “aberrant geniuses,” according to former CEO Eric Schmidt. “You need these aberrant geniuses because they’re the ones that drive, in most cases, the product excellence,” he told Wired in a recent piece.
- One of the “aberrant geniuses” named was former Android head Andy Rubin, who left Google in 2014 with a $US90 million exit package after being accused of coercing a co-worker to perform oral sex.
So the message here is, you could build a great Organisational Culture but if management don’t buy into it and make it part of the business operations and there is no one to nurture the culture it is domed from the beginning.
I could talk about organisations that have a strong organisational culture like “Mecca Brands” or Arts Centre Melbourne, but the moment there is laps of focus or a pandemic without a strategic business continuity plan the organisational culture can end up hurting the organisation.
To cultivate a successful Organisational Culture you need involvement form all key parties, know the organisation key goals and objectives, know the right cultural fit for your organisation, open up communication (bottom up as well as top down) and do regular health checks.
For more information on organisational culture, contact Norwest HR.