Have you ever felt the braingasm that ensues when you fit the last piece perfectly into a nearly completed puzzle? It is at that moment you realise, that days and hours of your hard labour have finally paid off, and much to your satisfaction, a beautifully put-together picture emerges. That’s exactly what it looks like when every element of your company’s cultural environment reflects what it truly stands for!
Think of it like this: As an employer, you have certain benchmarks set - in theory at least - when it comes to behaviour, work ethic, etiquette, values, etc. From the minute employees step into work, every little thing that happens, right from people’s behaviours and actions to the physical landscape of the office, is like a puzzle piece that should all come together to create a practical imitation of the benchmarks you have set. To elaborate, the reference picture can be your company’s cultural ethos, and the puzzle pieces can be the day-to-day behaviours and processes within it. When the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly, that’s when the final piece looks the way it should.
And yes, this integration is very much possible! To find out more about how we can achieve it, read on.
Introduction
A company’s cultural framework defines and lays down guidelines for the processes, atmosphere and behaviours in the workplace. Often, this ethos can seem like an enigmatic body that has little to no touch with reality. A lot of companies struggle with creating a smooth transition between their cultural values and the actual practices due to multiple factors, which often has impacts on several aspects like employee engagement, performance, turnover, absenteeism and the growth of the organisation itself. Any organisation with this lack of integration is like painting someone’s portrait without a reference picture; its operations and processes are ineffective without the sound basis of its internal values and principles.
It is of utmost importance that your company reflects its culture not only in its public brand image, but also in its internal brand image. This means that not only do people outside the company get a taste of what you stand for, but more importantly those inside the company must live and breathe what you stand for.
This disconnect between the two can manifest itself in several ways. For example, your company can say that they believe in a harmonious work-life balance, but in reality your leaders consistently expect employees to work overtime or attend work calls after work-hours. Or, say that you believe in diversity and inclusivity, but be biased towards the career growth of only certain pockets of employees.
What we’re trying to draw attention to is the importance of why every entity in the organisation - be it a leader or a subordinate - should join hands in a collective effort to actually live by and practice the ideals of their organisation. This, in turn, can have positive cascading effects on every element of your organisation, whether it is on increasing engagement, driving revenue, or retaining talent.
The Big ‘Why’ And The Multiple Factors
Now that we have looked at what a disconnect can look like, let’s get into the why behind it.
One of the major reasons for a disconnect between your cultural values and practices may be a lack of clear communication and transparency within your organisation. Employees may have no idea about what the core values of the company are, or how they can act in a way that reflects your company’s values. This can lead to a lack of direction and trust in employees about what is expected of them. For example, your company might believe in innovation, but there may be no clear communication to employees about where they can autonomously innovate and where they are expected to follow established protocols.
Another significant driving factor can be the mentality and behaviours of leaders themselves. Leadership and management play a pivotal role in how culture is reflected in day-to-day operations. When they dont embody your company’s culture, it sends mixed messages to employees. If your company believes in accountability, but managers leave employees hanging and don’t modify processes after feedback, that shows incongruence between the culture and practices.
Another leading reason can be organisational structures and procedures which may serve as roadblocks themselves. For example, your company might believe in regularly rewarding or recognising employees when they reflect company values in their actions. However, you might not have standardised and periodic processes through which employee performance data is stored and retrieved for those feedback mechanisms. Or, you believe in building a friendly and welcoming workplace but do not have practices which provide a space for employees to do that, like a drab and dull workplace landscape, or a lack of fun events to facilitate interaction.
The Impacts
The first area to take a hit is the trust and alignment of your employees. When an employee feels connected to the values and practices of your organisation, they are more likely to feel motivated to put in the effort to aid its growth. If there is a disconnect within the organisation itself, your employees are bound to feel the dissonance too, which can affect their productivity. Along with this, the chances of your employees staying with you long-term also go down, and attrition rates may shoot up.
We have talked about an inability to retain existing employees and encourage them to maintain their productivity. Now, consider another impact: when the practices of your company don’t reflect its values, there may also be a lack of vision within the hiring wings. This can be owed both to an urgency to hire for the increasing number of attriting employees, and also a lack of understanding on the type of talent your company really needs. Thus, you end up hiring the wrong talent for yourself who may not be the right fit for the company. Hiring misaligned employees can unfortunately give a bigger boost to the attrition rate that already exists. It’s like you’re going around in circles endlessly.
This can affect your public brand value, because dissatisfied employees are likely to express their frustration by word-of-mouth or on public platforms, which prevents your company from attracting talent even more. In other words, the cascading effects of this disconnect can become a vicious cycle that’s hard to escape from unless the wound heals from within. Ultimately, your company bears the brunt of these consequences and remains a stagnant entity.
What Can You Do?
By now, it’s evident that creating a robust relationship between your company culture and cultural practices can boost the growth of your organisation. Whether it’s keeping your employees happy, or creating a unique brand for yourself, this symbiosis can come in very handy. There are numerous ways to do this, so here are a few tips and tricks that you can work on.
One of the most important ways is to conduct engagement programs with them and find out what they need from your company. There are different modes in which you can gather your employees’ feedback on their experience in the company. You can have extensive conversations with them in the form of qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, or utilise robust engagement surveys like the Happyness Quotient to dig deeper into the needs of your employees and figure out actionable steps to meet them. This ensures that different communication channels are opened up through which your employees can bolster your efforts to materialise your cultural values in day-to-day work practices.
Another effective technique can be conducting training programs and workshops for your employees, including for the leadership. Every employee brings a unique blend of quirks and personality traits into the workplace, so the goal is to find a way where everyone is their awesome selves at work but also a puzzle piece that joins others in an effort to build an integrous workplace environment for others.
Lastly, you can also design your office interior in such a way that it reflects your core cultural values. For example, if you are a company that believes strongly in the work-life balance of your employees, hanging posters on ‘taking it easy’, or creating de-stress spaces can really go a long way!
A Conclusion
It’s important to keep in mind that aligning your company’s cultural framework and your practices is not a linear journey, but a consistent process. It requires effort from every level in your company, leader or subordinate, and genuinely listening to your employees. While it can demand a pool of resources from the company’s end - be it behavioural or financial - the benefits far outweigh the negative impacts of not having a strong interlinkage between your practices and your values. This means that whether positive or negative impacts, a myriad of aspects like employee trust, intrinsic motivation, alignment, engagement, productivity and turnover rates can be affected by the level of integration of your values and practices.
By incorporating actionable solutions like a meaningful office aesthetic, engagement initiatives and workshops/interventions into your regular routines, you can create a culture that’s not just a lofty set of ideals but a part of your employees’ actual experience.
Remember, gradual and consistent efforts can eventually unite your cultural benchmarks with your real-life practices. It also amalgamates the core beliefs of your company with your employees.
Creating a robust work culture helps keep your employees happier and connected to your company for a longer period of time!
Psst! This blog was created after a lot of thought by a real person. #NoGenerativeAI
