A Strong Corporate Culture Creates More Value to Stakeholders
The global consulting firm Watson Wyatt found that culturally aligned organizations return almost 300% more value to stakeholders. We have found a strong corporate culture is a competitive advantage.
A Strong Corporate Culture Creates Faster Revenue Growth, Higher Profitability and Greater Employee Engagement
Our own organizational alignment research at 410 companies across 8 industries found cultural factors account for 40% of the difference between high and low performing companies in terms of:
A strong workplace culture can indeed make a significant difference.
Defining a Strong Corporate Culture
For the sake of this article, let’s define a strong corporate culture simply as the way work truly gets done in an organization on a day-to-day basis.
Who is Really in Charge of Defining the Culture at Work? HR? Leadership? Employees?
Is it HR who implements policy? Leadership and management who set the rules? Or employees who live and breathe the company culture daily?
Views on Cultural Ownership Vary
When we ask clients, HR often claims they are in charge of workplace culture. Managers typically feel the executive team is responsible for cultural norms. Employees (especially millennials) think the own the definition and embodiment of a strong corporate culture. Not only do different stakeholders believe they are in charge of defining a strong corporate culture, but HR, Management, and Employees often define culture differently.
Steps to Take
Based upon organizational culture assessment data, here’s what to do:
What most company employees, management, and line staff alike, can agree on is that organizational culture matters. It is a proven indicator of employee engagement, client retention, and business performance.
It is all about bringing the key stakeholders together to understand how the three levels of a high performing corporate culture: (1) Cultural Health (2) Cultural Performance, and (3) Culture and Strategy Alignment
HR Wants
HR typically rates employee benefits as a leading driver of creating a strong and healthy corporate culture. Interestingly enough, employee benefits has had one of the lowest correlations to employee engagement in terms of employee advocacy, discretionary effort, and intent to stay over the last decade across our survey respondents.
Leaders and Managers Want
Leaders and managers most often believe that leading by example based upon agreed-to company mission and values in addition to high levels of customer centricity matter most in terms of creating a strong and lasting company culture.
People Want to Be Treated Fairly
While all three stakeholders have valid points of view, more often than not employees care most about being treated fairly. Employees want to work in a corporate culture where they are:
The Bottom Line
The more agreement and clarity you can achieve around defining the company culture you desire, the stronger your company and your culture will be going forward. Actively include all key stakeholders to define a healthy, high performing, and aligned culture to help your people and your business thrive.
To learn more about creating a strong corporate culture to help your business and people thrive, download The Research-Backed 3 “C’s” Required to Create a High Performance Culture
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