Corporate Culture is often defined as the set of beliefs and behaviors that determine how the company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions. It is seen as an intrinsic characteristic of the people within the brand that either organically developed over time or are synthetic in nature created for the purpose of the business.

Segmenting Culture

More into the subject, the use of the term, "corporate or organizational culture" emerged in the 1960s to define the characters of a company in academic applications. For the businesses of today, corporate culture often carries the message of, “our way of doing things better for our clients.” However, what companies advertise as their culture may not be an accurate generalization of what it is to be inside. There is also that mildly obvious disagreement between “the way we do things” and “the way we engage with our people.”

Finding a balance between meeting client and employee expectations is impossible. There is always a one-sidedness. You can either embrace the fact that making a tough decision is essential in running a successful business and do little or nothing about it. Or you can segment your culture, and build one that promotes a happy and resilient workforce.



Corporate Culture and Efficiency

How do you see your workplace? How does your team react to sudden changes in the way you deliver to clients? How do they react to overtime? It’s easy to say that you have a positive culture in the workplace when everything is going well. Put a little stress in the situation and what do you see? Corporate culture and the efforts around building it is aimed at efficiency. There is one corporate value out of 10 or 12 neatly framed on the wall that tells them to be resilient for the benefit of the business. The rest are beautifully written quotes to inspire. There is a leadership and development plan to make sure that they are performing beyond expectations.

What comes out of this elaborate system is an effective employee ready to lead and be part of the team. Supporting the development of employees bring about in him/her a feeling of pride and purpose. This is good. This is good for the business and good for the person involved.

I am leading to this question: should we limit our scope of responsibility to just doing things that will directly impact the business? Or do we take on a different approach to employee engagement, develop a separate culture that sets aside all obvious links to business objectives, forget about the numbers for a while, and find ways to support employee interests and build a community that feels genuine care? More than the feeling of pride and purpose, I think they will feel grateful if we do.

JANUARY 10, 2019

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