This past Thursday on the HR Happy Hour the topic was (organizational) culture-what it is, why it’s important, and why company’s should be paying attention to it. There was a sense that culture was (or should be) THE deciding factor in recruiting and keeping the right people in an organization. I agree with that it’s important and an organization’s talent should be in alignment with it.
It was a topic I enjoyed listening to and participating in (via the Twitter back channel), although I was frustrated as well. My frustration stems from the belief that most organizations aren’t self-aware enough to fully understand and exploit the unique value proposition of their culture. Aside from this, a more fluid social, political, and business landscape is making this ignorance costly as reflected in the following areas: recruitment, talent management, skill gaps (both short and long term), and brand management.
With that in mind, here are a few critical areas I believe a company should be focusing their attention if they wish to leverage their culture successfully.
First, culture is composed of People. They share a common language, worldview, and ways of doing things that’s built up over time. Enduring and vibrant cultures are constantly replenishing its stock by having people contribute to it over the course of their and their families lives. As the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.” How does an organization do this effectively if turnover is an issue? I’m not just talking about voluntary and/or involuntary; the concept of an employee devoting their career to a single organization is pretty much dead. The average tenure of an American worker is just over 4 years, according to a 2008 US Bureau of Labor and Statistics report.
How organizations are composed has also changed and many have more fragmented workforces. Depending on a variety of factors it may have a high concentration of “hired guns.” These are freelancers, vendors, outsourced services, contract workers, and others that don’t have any direct cultural connection to the company. In short, how does shorter tenure, combined with a heterogeneous workforce, impacts a company’s culture?
Global workforces are more common than ever. It’s not uncommon that teams and departments are spread out over different areas (time zones, nations, etc.) and are composed of people who’s differences span several dimensions, such as language, gender, and ethnicity, just to name a few. How does a company forge a strong culture with respect to other’s, one that may be as important to the individuals or to the place in which the company operates?
And these are just the more “traditional” ones. With the world getting smaller everyday, more and more people are constructing their own cultural identities, mainly through online spaces such as Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. These are also the same tools that many organizations use to engage their customers. So it’s safe to say that the boundaries between work and play are more porous than ever. To paraphrase Pogo, “We have met our customer, and he/she is us.” It’s a lot harder to ignore what employees are doing if they’ve “friended” the company on Facebook or is connected to their supervisor (and the CEO, CFO, and the mailroom clerk) on LinkedIn.
This leads to my second point; another area of consideration is Social Media and Technology. How does senior leadership reconcile people’s self-identity with the company’s? For example,in this age of the personal brand, is it a disingenuous for an organization that receives praise for its social media presence to then turn around and block these websites at work? Also, the internet in general, but mobile technology in particular, is making it extremely easy for individuals and groups to influence people’s perception of an organization. Any disconnect between the organization’s perceived and actual culture will be discovered and possibly exploited. In certain respects, social media can level the playing field between consumers, employees, and companies.
In my opinion, for companies to be successful at using their culture effectively, they need to focus on their people and tools. With people they need to consider them in several contexts-as employees, consumers, and as products of their unique cultural experiences. With tools, organizations must see them as the glue which binds them to their workforce, clients, and customers. It’s through this awareness that they will be able to articulate a clear cultural identity that will enable quality talent management.
What are your thoughts on company culture? I would love to hear from you in the comments section (or you can e-mail me; that’s cool too)!
