Workplace culture plays a vital role in the overall performance and satisfaction of employees in an organisation. It’s the personality and character of your organisation, so it’s one of the significant factors that employees consider when applying for jobs. Understanding what is workplace culture can help you impact happiness and improve your employee’s performance. In this article, we discuss what workplace culture is, its importance, what impacts it and tips on creating a positive workplace culture.
Despite it being a common term, many people wonder ‘what is workplace culture?’ Workplace culture combines the principles and ideologies of an organisation. It’s the environment you create for your employees and the sum of your organisations’ traditions, interactions, attitudes, values and behaviours. A healthy workplace culture aligns the company policies and employee behaviours with the company’s goals while focusing on the well-being of individuals.
What is workplace culture?
Workplace culture is the overall character of the business. Often unique to the organization, workplace culture can include elements such as the business’s values, beliefs, behaviors, goals, attitudes and work practices.
Ideally, businesses want to create a culture that is viewed as positive. A company could accomplish this by focusing on innovation, flexibility or empowerment. On the flip side, a company’s culture could be seen as negative when it is hierarchical, bureaucratic or power-driven.
Why is workplace culture important?
That’s why a focus on culture is the highest priority for organizations looking to transform how people work – and how they feel about work. Here are some specific reasons it’s so important, the areas it can impact, and how you can effect positive changes to your company culture.
Does your organization value mental health to the same degree as physical health? Workplace culture has a significant impact on employees’ wellbeing, and the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled employers to put more thought into keeping workers safe and healthy.
Wellbeing was the top-ranked trend of importance in the 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends study, with 80% of leaders identifying it as important or very important to their organization’s success.
Many organizations have moved to remote working and installed measures to give their people a better work-life balance, including flexible hours based around childcare. This can help staff feel supported and valued.
Start strengthening your company’s culture today!
At Process Street, we know how important culture in the workplace is – especially as it not only affects the company as a business, but also the lives of your employees. A healthy workplace culture can quickly become a chaotic mess if your culture management is unorganized. Even worse, if your employees don’t feel valued or encouraged.
Workplace behavior is always evolving, but with the right management, you can observe these changes and take the right steps towards bettering your culture. This is how you sustain a healthy culture where your employees look forward to coming into work.
Workplace Culture #10: Mission-Driven
You’ll often see mission-driven workplace cultures within nonprofits and grassroots startups. Employees are hired based on their passion for a particular cause or line of work and are relied upon to maintain that passion throughout the course of their employment. Personal satisfaction and work-life balance can, at times, take a back seat to mission devotion.
Companies are active within their communities and have close working relationships with investors, partners, and clients alike. Genentech, a biotechnology company out of San Francisco that seek solutions for the world’s most difficult-to-treat conditions, has a strong mission culture.
When deciding on the best workplace culture for your business, you don’t need to choose just one. Pull characteristics from some of the examples of workplace cultures we talked about today and implement them. There’s no better way to help your business and your employees succeed than developing a well-defined workplace culture.
References:
https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-is-workplace-culture
https://studyonline.rmit.edu.au/blog/positive-workplace-culture#:~:text=Workplace%20culture%20is%20the%20overall%20character%20of%20the,create%20a%20culture%20that%20is%20viewed%20as%20positive.
https://www.workplace.com/blog/workplace-culture
https://www.process.st/workplace-culture/
https://www.subitup.com/blog/articles/12/10-Types-of-Workplace-Culture:-Which-is-Best-for-YOUR-Business