By: Riwan Uquaili
Organizational culture is hugely important to your company’s success, your people, and your customers. So it’s helpful to spend time considering why your company’s culture is the way it is, and why it’s important. Your organizational culture defines for you and all others, how your organization does business, how your organization interacts with one another, and how the team interacts with the outside world. In other words, your organizational culture will reverberate across all aspects of your business because it represents the way you do business. It’s simultaneously your identity and image, which means it determines how your people and customers perceive you.
Your culture is a reflection of your company’s core values. How you conduct business, manage workflow, interact as a team, and treat your customers all add to an experience representing who you are as an organization and how you believe a company should be run. In short, your culture is the sum of your company’s beliefs in action. A solid organizational culture keeps your company’s core values front and center in all aspects of its day-to-day operations and organizational structure. Your people want more than a steady paycheck and good benefits; they want to feel like they matter. And when your people feel like they matter, they’re more likely to become culture advocates. One way is to recognize good work.
A culture that celebrates individual and team successes that gives credit when credit is due is a culture that offers a sense of accomplishment. It should be no surprise that employees who feel like part of a community are more likely to stay at your company. Ask any top performer what keeps them at their company, and you’re bound to hear this answer: the people. A workplace culture helps improve engagement, deliver a unique employee experience, and make your people feel more connected.
New hires have put considerable thought into the type of culture they’re entering. The culture at your organization is essentially a guiding force for them to align the organization around the need for your new employees. Hence, they assimilate into the organization to fit culturally and accelerate their progress so they can deliver and adjust. A thriving organizational culture brings together the people at your company and keeps them aligned. When your culture is evident, different perspectives can gather behind it with a common purpose. The culture at your organization sets expectations for how people behave and work together and how well they function as a team.
Rizwan has spent his entire career consulting in organizational change management and center of excellence. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics from University of Texas and an MBA from Clark University.
