ALIGNING CORPORATE CULTURE WITH EMPLOYEE CAPABILLTIES INITIATIVES

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Corporate culture implies the beliefs and behaviors that further define how a company’s  employees and management interact and handle the business interactions that place outside  the company’s domain. Corporate culture is often implied but not expressly defined, and  develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires. 

Corporate culture plays a critical role in enhancing the attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Organizational commitment is defined as the degree to which an employee identifies with the organization and wants to continue actively participating in it; this in turn defines organizational behavior. The better the employee’s commitment to the organization, the lesser  is the possibility for the person to quit. Strong commitment is also correlated with  organizational citizenship,job satisfaction, and job performance and employee retention.

Corporate culture affects the way in which people behave in an organization. It can be viewed as the unique pattern of shared values, attitudes, rituals, beliefs, norms, expectations, socialization, and assumptions of employees in the organization and is thus equated with the personality of the organization, depicting employee behavior even when they are not instructed on what to do. It is vehemently believed that corporate culture influences employees’ sense of engagement, identification and belonging to the organization.

A good and ethical workplace culture consists of unwritten rules signifying what it actually means  to be an employee at the company. These core values, and are often different from what the  employees see on posters or employee handbooks. In simpler words, workplace cultures implicitly  communicate, “How things are done around here.” Cultures are reinforced and reinstated by  leadership styles, procedures and perceptions of what is valued, rewarded and punished.

Corporate cultures, shaped intentionally or grown organically, penetrate into the core of a company’s  ideology and practices, and have a deep impact on every aspect of a business; from employee to  customer to public image. The current awareness of corporate culture is more acute than ever.

Policies such as extensive and comprehensive employee benefits and substitutes to hierarchical  leadership, doing away with closed offices and cubicles are a trend that reflects a more tech conscious, modern generation; a welcoming change for all the employees. This trend marks a progression from aggressive, individualistic, and high-risk corporate cultures to employee  supportive and employee friendly. 

Corporate culture is significant as it can aid and nurture important business objectives. Employees  are always attracted to companies whose cultures they can easily identify with, thereby leading to  employee retention and new talent acquisition. Companies, with their special focus on innovation,  can foster a culture of innovation which can be critical to maintain a competitive edge with respect to patents or other forms of intellectual property. Alternatively, corporate culture can also play a  role in marketing and taking the company to customers and to society at large, thereby doubling as  a form of public relations. 

Cultures can be changed. When the employee culture strategies are planned in a purposeful  manner and executed accordingly, they can lead to the following: 

Higher Participation: A culture of well-being can establish and strengthen employee’s trust and boost their enthusiastic participation. A supportive workplace culture proves to the employees that  the well-being program is in their best interest; not just a tactic to improve the company’s bottom line. 

Extensive Peer Support: “Alone one can achieve only little, but together one can get momentous success.‟ Supportive culture reinforces healthy lifestyles and leads to teamwork that contributes to better mental/emotional well-being. Co-worker support can overcome inertia or lack of motivation while being engaging and fun.

Become Better Managers: According to the research, managers profoundly impact the well being of their direct reports. Cultures of inculcating and incorporating well-being motivate and  rewards managers to keep employee well-being as a priority and as the most effective way to hit their numbers.

The involvement of an employee in company’s decision making as well as the ability of the  organization to adapt to changing circumstances positively impacts the employee’s commitment to  the organization. Thus follows the significance and relevance of employee well-being. Employee  well-being must take the core element of culture strategy because it is the source of the vitality  and capacity employees need to achieve differentiating sustained performance. It is worth  remembering that a culture of well-being cannot be injected into the organization. It is the most  important thing for an enterprise. To be most effective in driving organizational performance,  employee well-being must rise to the realm of core value status in the mind of the heads of the  company, triggering a decision to integrate a strong and sustained focus on employee well-being into the organization’s business strategy.

It can thus be concluded that employee well-being must become a core value that infuses all organizational procedures, policies, leadership traits and even how managers and leaders are evaluated. Inducing changes that show that taking action to improve employee well-being will be recognized and rewarded. Employees are more committed to their organizations when they are involved in decision making. The key success factors for organizations at present are employee empowerment, teamwork, and employee development. These enable managers and employees more committed to work and feel that they own a piece of the organization. Workplace cultures must be assessed and re-engineered to ensure they support employee well-being. This requires that culture itself must become the primary strategic priority, managed with objectives, timetables and accountability. It must be the ulterior motive of every organization if it aspires to be great, become a core value of the organization much more central than the peripheral culture-building activities. The time has come for employee wellness to up its game by making a strong, actionable business case that a culture of well-being is a differentiating contributor in achieving greatness.