What is corporate culture?
Culture is nothing but a pattern of behavior of human beings that includes their thought, action and speech. This mostly depends on an individual’s capacity to learn and transmit knowledge to the coming generations. Similarly, culture of an organization can be broadly described as its personality or character or simply, how things are normally done in the organization. Corporate culture indeed guides how the employees of an organization feel and think on working for the organization. Corporate culture also encompasses certain basic elements such as core values, ethics and beliefs that define an organization (Hansen, n.d.). In business, there are many casual cultural elements that define the way things are usually done. Each and every business organization has got distinct organizational cultures that may be very difficult to understand from the outside. In some organizations the employees may be faithful to their bosses whereas in some other organizations the employees may be loyal toward the union. Still, in some organizations the management is more concerned about their colleagues who are working in some specific sales territories. For example, when some employees are asked why on earth do they work, they would reply that they work for money. On the other hand, when employees of another organization that promotes a relatively strong and consistent organizational culture with each and every employee knowing the vision and goals of the organization, they would say they are working for the goals of the organization. Thus, regardless of strong or weak, corporate culture powerfully influences an organization. Culture of an organization practically affects everything – right from who is promoted and what choices or decisions are made to how the workers dress, talk and what entertainments they enjoy (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). Obviously, owing to the impact of all the above factors, culture of an organization is bound to have a significant effect on the success or failure of the organization.
There are companies with excellent organizational cultures worth emulating and companies with poor employee and customer friendly cultures. For example, Google is one of the companies that promote informal processes for product development besides giving its employees free access to the Chief Executive and Co-founders of the company. Similarly, another company may concentrate on expansion without proper market study or employee training and thus burden the new and existing employees with high business targets. A culture driven by profit motive without adequate employee training and motivation would result in failure in the short run.
Why is understanding the employer’s corporate culture important?
Corporate culture begins with the owner of the company. Therefore, understanding the culture of the employer gives potential job-seekers clues about the values and beliefs that are given more importance across the organization. Well-defined culture in an organization drives all the decisions right from hiring and induction of new employees. For the long-term growth, organizations need to hire people with more competitive traits that make them too successful in tune with the growth of the company (Patrick, 2013). At the outset, before taking a positive decision to join a company, a potential job-seeker needs to understand if the organization has a set of values that is reflected in the policies with regard to hiring and developing its employees in the process of achieving its goals. Secondly, new employees too have distinct aspirations, values and beliefs. For example, someone may love to work independently whereas yet another one may like teamwork and collaborating with others to achieve organizational objectives. Also, some companies may require their employees to work additional hours each day. Hence, potential job-seekers have to understand the values and beliefs that drive the culture of an organization to ensure their own beliefs, values and aspirations also get nurtured continuously by working in the organization.
Some companies would really excite employees by constantly stimulating their success and development even as others might be really stressful. Employee-unfriendly companies would lead employees to quit with frustrations before either accomplishing anything significant or learning much about the job. Certain job-seekers, with the excitement or pressure of finding a new job, accept offers with only limited understanding about the culture and interests of the organizations they join. On failing to find the organizational culture matching their expectations and aspirations, they are either likely to quit the organization or work without any satisfaction. Unsatisfied workers never give their best to the organization they work for, which in turn blocks their career growth and development. Sometimes, seeing from the outside, a job-seeker may assume that an organization may value human nature and relationships while the real culture of the organization may be entirely the opposite. Hence, before taking the key decision of joining a company, it is quite essential for a job-aspirant to study if the company is really friendly toward the employees and capable of nurturing and developing them.
Apart from the salary package, employees look for a favorable environment to work and develop their career while creatively contributing to the growth of the company they work for. Talented employees are therefore compelled to look for organizations to prove themselves, and it is a challenge for them to choose the right company to widen their knowledge and skills. It is also true that a strong organizational culture is capable of bringing talented people together. When employees are provided with an opportunity to know one another better, a synergic effect is created within the organization that would lead to the origin of more business ideas and higher productivity. In other words, an organization with a strong culture of promoting good interpersonal relationships and knowledge sharing would boost the morale of its employees besides improving its productivity.
How do you, as a job-seeker, understand the corporate culture of a potential employer?
Even though every job seeker is interested in knowing about the culture of the organization they wish to work for, in fact, one never knows the true culture prevailing in an organization until one has some firsthand experience of working in the organization. But, a job-aspirant can always get close to the experience with the company by studying and observing it closely. Basically, a job-seeker can attempt to understand the culture of an organization before and after attending a job interview (Hansen, n.d). Before appearing for the job interview, going through the advertisements of the company, its annual reports, website and other relevant reports from newspapers and the mass media would be more helpful in understanding the beliefs and values of a company. Arriving early or, if possible, unannounced to the interview and spending time watching how present employees are behaving and interacting with one another, observing their punctuality, the way they dress, their degree of courtesy and professional outlook would also help a potential job-seeker understand about the culture of an organization. Also the ambience prevailing at the workplace and the surroundings right from the car porch and the behavior of the security personnel to the cleanliness of the workplace and the openness and attitude of the interview panel would give clues about the organizational culture of the company. According to Goodman and Hirsch (2010), presence of an effective communication strategy across all departments of an organization, which is a sign of good organizational culture, is highly essential to cope with the rapid change in global economy.
Deal and Kennedy (1982) have identified four categories under which the culture of organizations could be identified with. They are; tough guy culture, work hard and play hard culture, bet your company culture and process culture. A culture with a tough guy attitude is known for quick results with high stake and a number of rule breakers in the pay role (Goodman, 1998). Organizations with work hard and play hard culture believe in rewarding the performing employees besides promoting a humor-filled and encouraging atmosphere to the employees. Bet your company culture promotes a long term vision with high risk and slow decision making culture. According to Goodman (1998), the fourth type of organizational culture, typical of many finance companies, includes emphasizing on processes, procedures, orderliness and punctuality.
Barnett (2012) advises job-seekers to ask three questions that would guide them to identify the culture of potential organizations. The first question is asking oneself it he learns anything at the workplace. For example, knowing how efficiently things are getting done at the organization, the importance of team work and interaction of team members would help a person know if there is room for learning in the organization. Secondly, asking the question how best one would learn about the culture of the organization is relevant for a job-seeker anxious about joining a company. Researching about the organization’s approach and policies by going through the vision and mission statements and other important documents, talking to both other employees and outsiders like ex-employees, suppliers and customers would be helpful in understanding the culture of the organization. The third question in the series according to Bernett (2012) is when one should learn about the organization. It is difficult for an aspirant to learn about the culture of an organization at an earlier stage. At the same time, a person’s impression about an organization would guide him to select some companies while avoiding others.
References
Barnett, B. (2012, May 2). When Choosing a Job, Culture Matters. Retrieved June 28, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2012/05/when-choosing-a-job-culture-ma
Deal, T., & Kennedy, A. (1982). Corporate cultures: The rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub.
Goodman, M. (1998). Corporate communications for executives. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Goodman, M., & Hirsch, P. (2010). Corporate communication: Strategic adaptation for global practice. New York: Peter Lang.
Hansen, S.R. (n.d). Offering expert answers and solutions to common job-seeker problems, questions, predicaments. Retrieved June 28, 2015, from http://www.quintcareers. com/career_doctor_cures/
Patrick, J. (2013, May 21). The real meaning of corporate culture. Retrieved june 28, 2015, from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21the-real-meaning-of-corporate-culture/?_r=0
