Defining Workplace Culture & Why It Matter

​Article written by Patti Mitchell

The biggest mistake organizations make is letting their workplace culture form naturally without first defining what they want it to be.

Culture is as important as your business strategy - because it either strengthens or undermines your objectives. Culture is the character and personality of your organization - Your Branding.  It's what makes your business unique and is the sum of its values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors, and attitudes.

Positive workplace culture attracts talent, drives engagement, impacts happiness and satisfaction, and affects performance. The personality of your business is influenced by everything. Leadership, management, workplace practices, policies, people, and more impact culture significantly.
 
Why Workplace Culture is Important:

• It attracts top talent

               Job candidates seek a strong, positive, clearly defined and well-communicated culture that matches their career goals.

• It drives engagement

                Culture impacts how employees interact with their work and your organization.

• It impacts happiness and satisfaction

               Employee happiness and satisfaction has proven to be a key factor in why employees stay and employee retention is stable.

• It affects performance

              Organizations that place workplace culture as important demonstrate how they value employees - in turn employees value their work and perform above average.

What Impacts Culture in the Workplace - Mission - Vision - Trust - Beliefs - Policies - Philosophies - Practices

              Leadership
              Management
              Environment
              Experiences
              Opportunities
              Communications
 
Your culture can be a reflection of your company’s core values. The ways in which you conduct business, manage workflow, interact as a team, and treat your customers all add up to an experience that should represent 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. If your values don’t match your culture, that’s a problem. It could mean that your “core values” are a list of meaningless buzzwords, and your employees mirror that image.

​A successful organizational culture brings together the people at your company and keeps them aligned. When your culture is clear, different perspectives can gather behind it with common purpose. The culture at your organization sets expectations for how people behave and work together, and how well they function as a team. In this way, culture can break down the boundaries of conflict, guide decision-making, and improve workflow overall - while a toxic organizational culture has the capacity to do just the opposite.

A strong organizational culture keeps your company’s core values front and center in all aspects of its day-to-day operations and organizational structure. Developing and administering assessment tools and surveys may help you gauge your culture plus reveal the gaps between the culture you want to attain and the culture you currently have.

Considering reasons why organizational culture is important - Your goal is to discover what your people value most and support that - this will get you one step closer to creating an extraordinary workplace.
 
Patti Mitchell, CEO
Navigation-Point
Professional & Management Development Training

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