Company culture is a critical component for an organisation and impacts everything, starting from the performance of the business together with how it is perceived in the outside world. In this article, we shall be discussing why an organisation needs to establish its company culture and where it stands in this regard. Understanding the fundamentals of your company culture enables you to grow the positive elements and address the negative ones. So why is it important to understand company culture?
Defines identity
Company culture is synonymous with an organisation’s identity. One good exercise would be to immediately jot down the first five attributes that come to mind when mentioning company culture in the context of the organisation you work for. These may vary from good opportunities to grow to toxic work environment. Once you determine what the organisation stands for, you can then start to identify the underlying reasons.
Simply put, an organisation’s culture is a representation of its core values. It is the sum of a company’s beliefs in action. If your core values, are not consistent with the company culture, it means that the former is just a list of buzzwords with no meaning. When this is the case, employees would feel disengaged by the preaching. A strong company culture is aligned with the core values.
A strong culture can promote employee loyalty
One of the benefits of strong company culture is that employees can become endorsers of the business. In today’s business environment, employees are looking for more than just pay, they want to feel empowered and that what they do makes a difference. When people feel that they are contributors to their company culture, they promote it internally and also externally. This is also a vital step in retaining your key talent, as when employees feel that they are part of a community, they would feel valued.
Culture contributes to performance and wellbeing
Studies show that company culture correlates with performance and employee wellbeing. A company culture may be so driven on performance and execution that wellbeing and mental health might take the back seat. Whilst this may work to achieve short-term results, in the longer term this is likely to lead to negative repercussions.
These are just some of the reasons why company culture needs to be given importance. Striking a balance between productivity and the needs of your employees will help you develop a stronger company culture.
