The complete guide to a great corporate culture

The term corporate culture refers to the idea that your workplace leaves a lasting and tangible impression on past, current, and future employees by simply existing. It is the emotional environment of your workplace, and it is both defined by and defines working relationships between managers and employees, employees and customers, and employees working together. Basically, it runs through the entire fabric of your organisation.

Here's the hard truth: Whether your organisation chooses to define it or not, every business has a corporate culture. When you don’t define it, though, you open up the opportunity for culture to define itself. That could lead to misalignment, frustration, or worse, a toxic work environment for everyone.

If you’re looking for a starting point, corporate culture typically reveals itself through:

• Values – What your organisation stands for.

• Norms – What is commonly practiced at your company.

• Routines – How processes look for those involved in them.

Let’s quickly break down each:

Think of it like this: Team culture is an extension of corporate culture in the sense that, even in smaller teams as part of a larger organisation, each can have its own unique culture. In some cases, this could be positive and could augment your overall culture, and in others, it could be potentially negative (or, worse yet, toxic).

Ultimately, it falls on HR (as well as top-level management) to put some effort into managing this culture. Keep in mind, though: Culture will form on its own even when it is not defined by management or by the guiding vision of a company. This can be positive, but it can also be very negative. For that reason, it is better for HR to take a driver’s seat position.

After all, management equals culture. That’s it, short and sweet.

If employees are managed well, they have a positive perception of their company’s culture and are therefore more likely to commit to it.

Management and corporate culture are expressed in the form of general environmental conditions, such as:

• Working hours

• Introductions

• Dress codes

• Salaries

• Health care

• Child care

If we pull back to the earlier part of our conversation, companies can have a direct impact on the values defined, the norms that go with them, and the routines that emphasise and build on them. This then asks the question: What are some good examples of corporate culture set by management?

Guide: A strong culture powers everything

Expert insights and step-by-step instruction to crafting a lasting corporate culture. Download our guide to leverage culture for corporate success today.

Download the guide

An organisation can be perceived as being service-oriented and innovative, just as easily as it can be seen as backward or unapproachable. Corporate culture is real, tangible, and has a concrete effect on employees.

In that sense, corporate culture is the way in which a company acts. How it thinks, how it feels, and even how it expresses opinions. Thinking about it further, it can be expressed in various ways, including:

It especially comes across in the ways in which employees interact with customers. A key example would be if a customer makes a purchase, but doesn’t hear back from the company afterward. This lack of communication is systematic and is a standard that is (for better or worse) set by the corporate culture.

Let’s consider another corporate culture example: ‘Employee Y’ is working on a difficult task and discusses it with colleagues over lunch. These colleagues immediately volunteer to help, even though it will require them to work overtime. This, too, is an example of organisational culture in practice.

Given the above, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to ask applications about specific values (e.g. "are you proactive?”) during an interview. It is far more productive to ask them about behaviours, where they can demonstrate that they act in line with particular values rather than agreeing to them.

This is the difference between a culture ‘in principle’ and a culture ‘in practice’:

So, why does it benefit a business to have a sound organisational culture? There are a variety of reasons why it helps, which we’ll dive into right now…

According to a study by Columbia University, there is a direct correlation between staff turnover rates and what is rated as strong organisational cultures (48.4% versus 13.9%).

The fact is that retention rates can tell you a lot about the state of your organisational culture. The main takeaway, though, is that a toxic type of culture can force people out the door in greater numbers and at greater speeds.

When you have a strong culture, though, employees feel validated, engaged, and motivated to be their best. Therefore, they become more attached to your company and want to stay longer. Not only are people more satisfied with their work, but they are also satisfied with their workplace.

Building on lower rates of turnover, hiring talent becomes even easier for companies that have a strong organisational culture. That’s not only because your employer brand becomes stronger, but employees are more likely to help you build a strong employee referral program.

It also makes the recruitment process seamless, too, as having a defined culture can make it easier to vet and hire talent for just about any role. You not only have more talent, but you’re better able to keep them around for longer, too.

According toCultureIQ, employees who work in companies with a strong organisational culture feel like their atmosphere and overall mission are more clear (and, therefore, stronger).

This is an imperative element of organisational culture when it comes to impacting business performance. After all, employees need to enjoy where they work and feel a tangible connection to their day-to-day tasks. If they lost this, they lost motivation, which ultimately costs the company.

A better work atmosphere ensures that employees are happy to come to work each day, and are motivated to do their best. This leads us to our next point…

When it comes to the bottom line, a strong organisational culture is simply better for business. According to Gallup, selecting high-talent managers (a byproduct of a strong culture) can lead to 27% increased revenue per employee.

On top of that, individual contributors can add 6% to their own work. That results in a 33% increase in revenue by focusing on a culture that attracts talent and has the engagement metrics to match.

This reveals itself in multiple ways, whether you want a culture driven by feedback, performance, or a combination of multiple approaches. In general, when you make a positive organisational culture a priority, it increases revenue.

Building on revenue, and according to Forbes, 50% of executives in various companies have stated that positive organisational culture has a direct influence on growth rates.

Culture is something that builds on itself. Once you spend the time to craft a vision, goals, core values, and ways to live there, it lays the foundation for growth. Whether attracting more talent, retaining, or getting the most out of them.

Therefore, companies that devise a cultural strategy are better able to grow because they have a clear idea of who they are and what they want to achieve across the organisation.

Last, but not least, there are the time savings that come from a strong organisational culture.As per the Engagement Institute, employees who identify with their company are more motivated to work harder and cost their companies less.

That’s because the more you ratchet up the connection an employee feels with the company, by way of the culture, the more likely they are to do the right thing for the company every time. In fact, they will view their own interests as the company’s interests (this is a key element of what is known as the psychological contract).

When these two go hand in hand, it has a cascading effect on everything we just mentioned. Employees feel more connected, work harder, save time, drive revenue, and the business benefits no matter what it is trying to do.

Find Out What Your Employees Really Need

Try this helpful template to run your next company-wide survey. Take the pulse of your organisation today.

Get The Free Template

A strong organisational culture, and a strategy that invests in it, essentially means ensuring that every employee (from interns to executives) identifies with the company and understands what the company stands for (and against).

Here are some of the most frequently asked company culture questions out there:

The components of company culture can often be understood as an organisation’s system of shared:

• Vision

• Values

• Norms

• Symbols

• Attitudes

Each of these influences how employees act, and interact, with one another, and how they feel about the company. It also extends to every level of the organisation, but it can be determined by just about anyone, anywhere, and at any time. If it sounds difficult to define, that’s because it is!

It starts from the top. Company culture includes every member of senior management, but it extends all the way through to each and every employee. This includes managers, leaders, and even part-time employees, too. It can also include clients or customers, too, when it comes to their shared relationship with employees.

We may want to start with a cultural model, something like the cultural web model, to define culture.If we want to understand corporate culture as a topic, though, it helps to start with a few key questions:

• What does our organisation stand for?

• What is important to our organisation?

• How are those two related?

If you have a positive corporate culture, it can help ensure that:

• Employees feel supported in times of crisis.

• Companies achieve their set goals.

• Employees feel good as part of the company, actively contributing to it and staying in the company.

• Organisational development is achieved.

Firstly, HR, just like managers, can be role models for a positive corporate culture.

This means that they have internalised the organisation’s values to such an extent that they translate them into behaviours. Additionally, HR can help employees understand the organisation’s culture.

HR can support corporate culture by:

• Formulating and communicating a mission statement (in cooperation with management)

• Taking initiatives to develop teams

• Offering professional development opportunities

• Organising events

• Promoting the exchange of knowledge

• Sharing information and keeping messages consistent

Moreover, HR can support the organisation’s culture as early as the recruitment process by ensuring that there is a good cultural fit between applicants and the company. To do so, HR should have a standardised process and ask candidates about their values and norms in a behaviouristic manner.

Another task is to convey the company’s culture in external relationships to strengthen its employer branding.