Is your corporate culture encouraging?

Corporate culture is defined as a behaviour, that people in an organization adapt and adhere to.  It defines the norms and standards set in the organization that makes an action acceptable or deplorable based on the set standard.  The corporate culture is brought to form by the company’s strategy.  The vision, mission, goals, and objectives set the directions of the corporation and in a way, also sift its workforce by identifying in the long haul, who among them have faith in the values that are drawn from the company’s beliefs.

Most often, business sets up its policies based on the defined  values of the organization.  And  in order to make sure each member of the group is reminded of the company’s beliefs, the company affixes physical reminders of their policies on the walls.  Statements of the corporate tenets that have to be revered.  The words are usually friendly and project a positive climate that would make the onlooker or a newcomer be in awe of such good statements like” balanced work life”, or “total human development” or “open top to bottom communication, “ and “concern for career advancement” .  However, the better pictures that tell the truer stories are the faces that meet you as you enter the workplace each day.

The front liners who entertain the guests; the telephone operator who cannot feign a happy voice with a gruelling heart; the janitor who mops the floor with a lot of noisy splashes; all these show a more vivid image of the real application of corporate standards.

A lot of the corporate culture rests on top management.  The shaping of the values, and the exercise of beliefs.  So that is where the buy in should start.  Not in an HR or PR office.  It is cascaded to the people below the hierarchy and is responded to in various ways. 

Adherence, manifests a buy-in or tolerance.  Buy-in becomes more sustainable and strategic.  Tolerance, will pall and erode the passion to work or be part of the organization at all. 

A questioning reaction, and eventual buy-in can also be a response.  If well-emulated by top management, and  with proper information management, the people down the line will understand intentions in the change of corporate policies  that will likewise bring in a cultural change.  Hopefully this shift will positively support the company’s intended growth.

The need to review the corporate policies that define the culture is so demanded in almost all books of management.  And the reason why I am taking this up, like a lesson in Human Behaviour in Organizations, a subject in management, is because some small enterprises who have made it big, sometimes fail to look again at the plans they made years ago.  And fail to keep up with changing needs of the business and their people.

When our people no longer smile, or when we notice their feet drag to work, maybe we also have to check, if our corporate temperature is still encouraging or not.  Because as we pursue the bottom line, we may just end up there.  Right at the bottom!