Demystifying ‘Workplace Culture’

Good workplace culture.
What comes to mind?

Having a fun-filled calendar of team outings, eating a delicious daily buffet at the cafeteria, getting a LinkedIn-worthy swag kit upon joining, turning up for work in casual clothes, high-fiving the CEO when you see them, getting unlimited annual leaves, having colleagues that are like family…

If you assumed any of these ‘define’ good workplace culture, we must break it to you — they don’t.

Fun fact: You could throw in all of the above as ‘workplace perks’ and still have low employee morale, high attrition, low ratings on employer portals, and worst of all — unachieved goals impacting the sacred bottom line.

Here’s why:

The above examples were all mere indicators of a solid underlying culture that gives rise to shared behaviors. Since most discussions happen around these indicators, rather than around the culture that drives these actions, the norm is to believe that “a team-outing a quarter, won’t let that bottom-line falter.”

Clever adages aside, one cannot evaluate the culture of a company from one single lens! The conditions and context in which the company operates are most important when assessing workplace culture. Workplace culture can be influenced by region, industry, strategy, leadership, market conditions, and organizational design.

Should you care?

Absolutely…

• …if you care about personal accomplishment. Because whichever level you are at, you help frame the culture of a company. Your own achievements, success, happiness at work, career, and financial growth are directly linked to workplace culture.
• …if you care about growth. Because a company’s culture happens to be a critical and foundational business system, contributing directly to its success and growth.
• …if you care about the competition. Because healthy and aligned cultures can provide a competitive advantage for companies.

So What is ‘Culture’?

The simplest way to understand it is that culture is the silent language of an organization that emanates from shared beliefs and goals.

• No one has to teach this language; it is implicit and unspoken, yet it is highly recognizable.
• Human beings are hardwired to recognize this silent language and respond to it instinctively.
• It gets naturally built up over time from the repeating patterns of behavior and other unseen aspects such as mindsets, motivations, and assumptions.
• Culture can manifest itself without interventions, but it is possible to mold it if it strays in an ‘unwanted’ direction.
• An aligned workplace culture produces unforeseen energy and passion towards a common goal — pushing an organization from good to great.

So what then is ‘Good Workplace Culture’?

Well, that depends on how well your organizational culture mirrors where you are on the map and what your company stands for.

You can find ‘opinions’ and ‘case studies’ galore on this topic.

They definitely give you a perspective, but what works for an Amazon doesn’t work for a Google. The point is, there is no ‘Rule Book of Good Cultural Practices’ on which you can build your culture — only the management and its employees can gauge what kind of culture best suits their organization, so that all employees can perform at their highest potential impacting the company’s bottom line.

Some recent notable examples include Experian, which created a ‘Home Aloners’ group to support the mental health of its remote working employees. Publix ran an ‘Idea Spot’ program to make all its employees feel heard. CapitalOne instituted a ‘Onederful Recognition Program’ to appreciate and recognize good work.

Taking a look at some torchbearers, Bain & Company has been voted as a great place to work for a decade. Their culture leans heavily on employees being their most valuable asset, very much like Southwest Airlines, which also puts its employees first.

But Bain and Southwest achieved their culture goals without running an ‘Idea Spot’ or a ‘Home Aloners’. They used methods unique to them to ensure their employees felt cared for, enough that they became leading examples that people quote to this day.

Workplace Culture ‘happens.’

Even without any deliberate interventions, workplace culture begins to manifest in two ways:

1. What is OK with leadership
It is natural human behavior to emulate the behaviors of leaders. Employees may disagree deep- down on some principles, however, they will mirror these behaviors to feel included, and show alignment with the leadership level. (Catch yourself laughing at a dead joke by your boss the next time, and you’ll know this to be true.)

2. What is OK with the majority of employees
It can also work the other way around where what is okay with most employees starts dyeing the cultural fabric of an organization. This is especially true for large teams whose members have been around for a long time. In such cases, leaders and team members have to find a middle ground for cultural reinforcement, such that they are not at odds with each other.

Some examples:

THE ‘DRESS CODE’ EXAMPLE

Most organizations these days do not have a strict dress code. Even so, it is impossible to imagine leaders in suits and other team members in baggy torn jeans and tees, even if the majority wants to dress up in this casual way. Here’s why:

• Those who want to be ‘in the league’ will eventually start to dress up like the leaders, as the easiest way to set themselves apart from the crowd.
• Over time more and more employees will realize they feel excluded if they don’t ‘up’ their dress game.
• Gradually, even though there was never a dress code, all people at the organization would start gravitating toward a semi-formal attire at work.
• This invisible dress code will also start to manifest itself in behaviors more “suited to the suits.”

And just like that, an unspoken dress code comes into being, exhibiting itself as a visible symptom of formal workplace culture.

THE ‘SETTING STANDARDS FOR PERFORMANCE’ EXAMPLE

Let’s take another example of a behavior that is not as apparent as a dress code — mindsets and motivations. If leaders, in a bid to seem fair and friendly, make no visible distinction between high and average performers, then they are subtly sending the message that:

• It is OK to be an average performer at that organization
• Over time, mediocrity becomes the norm and even high performers possess no motivation to do well at their jobs.

And just like that, an entire organization gets set up for mediocrity, and ‘being average’ becomes a symptom of laid-back workplace culture.

So yes, even without making any conscious attempts, culture at any workplace can evolve on its own.

However, it can be molded to move in the desired direction! More on this, and how we are helping shape workplace culture at Hevo, in our next blog. Stay tuned!