The corporate culture can make or break an organization, because productivity, team-building, and attracting and keeping the best employees is strongly influenced by these hard-to-measure but very powerful workplace variables.
How would you describe your corporate culture? If you were a young staff member looking for a place to excel, what characteristics of a workplace would attract you? And how can the impact of corporate culture be measured?
The successful workplace culture has changed from one that emphasizes strength, stability, endurance, loyalty, and other paternalistic values that encourage long-term relationships with workers. Today workers want a corporate culture that embraces transparency and accountability, diversity in the workplace, and a strong commitment to social responsibility and worker safety and security. Employees want participatory management, a seat at the table, and to know their voices and opinions are heard.
A management style that encourages mediation, conflict resolution, team-building, and other participatory management will be more successful than one that takes decision-making authority and moves it up a chain of command. A leadership team that shows personal courage and responsibility within a framework of transparency and accountability will be leaders who engender the loyalty of employees.
How can you tell if your corporate culture is influencing employees in a positive or negative way? Two indices that can help you evaluate the impact of culture on employee productivity and morale are retention and EEO complaints.
Evaluating problems with retention is critical. Careful exit interviews by HR, not a previous manager, may point to areas needing thought and resolution. The old-school practice of “probation” for a new employee could take the model of a test drive–you check us out and we check you out–with bilateral evaluation and a stepped hiring decision.
Additionally, if you find that your workplace is not as diverse as you would like, look at diversity and retention together. Are you losing disabled employees? New parents? Veterans? Are you receiving feedback through EEO complaints that religion, gender, or race, or ethnicity is causing conflict in the workplace? If so, thought leaders throughout the company should work together to identify and address areas for improvement.
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