All of us who worked in a few companies in our respective careers and those like me who had the wonderful opportunity to work with many Companies as a Business Coach would have observed that some Companies had a very good Working Culture whereas many Companies did not have such a great working Culture. 

We generally say the Culture of the Company is good and may be recollect that this company had the practice of ‘Town hall meeting’ or ‘Annual Sports meet’ and so on. 

Let us look at what a Good Work Culture is and how do we develop it in a conscious manner in a company.  

I remember a definition of ‘Culture’. ‘Culture is the way we do things around here’. 

So, a Work Culture personifies the way you run your Company. To understand this better, let us look at the case of any of the Religions that we practice. Each Religion has its Rituals / Festivals that are celebrated by the Practitioners of the Religion. These Rituals / Festivals survived for Centuries. In the Geographical locations where these Rituals / Festivals are followed rigorously, the Religion flourished. According to the Rituals / Festivals the Culture of that Religion developed. In the Same Religion, there may be different Rituals / Festivals in different Geographical Locations. So, the Culture in the same Religion in different areas may be slightly / vastly different. While the Governing Doctrine is same, the Culture may be different based on the Practices / Rituals / Festivals in that region.

But, the Practices / Rituals / Festivals play a very big role in sustaining a Religion. All the Religions have been sustaining for Centuries! 

Now, if you want to develop and maintain a Good working Culture in your Company, you should be able to define your ‘Good Work Culture’. This may depend on the Values that your Company Practices and the way you want to contribute to the Society through your Company’s work. 

It is good to start right at the top and be clear about the type of Work Culture that you want to build. But if you are not very clear about this overall objective, then you can look at some universal ‘Good to have’ Objectives. 

Some examples are as follows:

01.  Performance Focus: Competent Employees / Vendor Partners would definitely be very happy to work in an environment where good Performance is recognized and encouraged. 

02.  Professional Improvement: Again, the Employees / Vendor Partners would like to have a culture of Company encouraging / giving opportunities to the employees / Good Vendors to Learn continuously.

03.  Wellness: Employees would love to work in a Company where their Wellness is given a good importance. 

04.  Customer Orientation: A Company where good Customer Orientation is there (Both internal and external Customer) would progress well.

05.  Contribution to the Society: All Stake holders would be happy if the Company is seen as contributing to the goodness of the Society at large.

06.  Process focus: Company may give importance to ‘How’ the Goals are being pursued in the Company and not just the Goals themselves.

This way a Company may have some overall Objectives that are not just monetary objectives but means to achieve the Business Goals of a Company in a consistent manner. 

Why should companies pay attention to Culture?

People are the foundation for any Company. All the Stake holders are important. But it is ultimately the Stake holders who are making / breaking the company. 

Even if a Company is not building a Working Culture deliberately, a Work Culture gets developed on the basis of how things get done in the company. 

A Good / Bad Culture would develop without your active participation. If you want to develop a good culture based on your Company’s values, then it is better for you to participate in that process and try your best to influence it. If you do not control it, it will be left to the Dominant personalities in your Company who would anyway influence the way the work gets done in your Company. 

If you are not controlling the Culture in the Company, then the Work Culture can keep changing as the Leaders in the Company change. This is the reason we keep hearing ‘It was an exciting place till 2 years back when ‘xyz’ was in charge’. 

How do we build the Working Culture in a Company?

As we discussed earlier, the Company’s Work Culture is sum of its ‘ways of getting things done’. 

One needs to introduce some specific Practices in the company that work towards the Objectives that have been set.  

Let us discuss with reference to the Six Objectives of Work Culture that we earlier discussed. 

a)     Performance Culture: Some of the Practices that may be adapted to establish this culture are:

a.     Having Measurable KPIs for every employee.

b.     Having Transparent link between KPI score and Ratings. This should be visible to all employees.

c.     Having clear rules for Promoting Employees.

d.     Having practice of giving Objective Feedback by all Supervisors to their teams.

e.     Celebrating Performance at the Micro Level. Leaders in the Company can have practice of giving small mementos to encourage Small but significant progress towards Goals.

f.      Celebrating Good Ideas towards Work Objectives.

There can be many more innovative ideas.

b)    Professional Improvement: You can promote many practices towards this Objective. Some of them are as follows:

a.     Having periodic Technical Paper presentations and inviting IIT / International University Professors who are experts on your Company’s Technology area. 

b.     Sponsoring the higher studies of Employees.

c.     Promoting study of your Technology area.

d.     Promoting the learning of Formal Technical Problem-Solving methodologies.

e.     Promoting Discussion forums on HR, Finance, Supply Chain related topics along with local companies.

f.      Improving the Skills of Employees with focused training.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list. 

c)     Wellness: Promoting Wellness can be done thru a variety of means. Some of them are as follows:

a.     Conducting lectures by Doctors / Yoga Experts to address Physical / Mental / Emotional and Spiritual Health. 

b.     Conducting Health Camps

c.     Weekly Wellness camps where Yoga / Zumba etc are practiced.

d.     Health monitoring of Employees

e.     Recognizing Role models in the area of Physical fitness

What is critical is to do these activities continuously and not as one time activity. Employees adapt these practices at their own speed.

d)    Customer orientation: There are several practices that can help you move towards this objective:

a.     Taking periodic feedback / Score from Internal Customers. 

b.     Internal Customers to have a say in the Performance evaluation of Internal Suppliers. 

c.     Recognizing Best Internal Suppliers by Internal Customers. 

d.     Publishing Great Customer service stories in the Company.

e.     Inviting Senior Executives from other companies to tell Stories about Customer orientation. 

Truly this area has enormous potential for innovation in promoting Customer orientation. 

e)    Contribution to Society: This is an area that you can use to activate the fourth Energy – Spiritual Energy of every Human (After Physical, Mental and Emotional Energies). Very powerful one. Some of the Practices that you can think of are:

a.     Encouraging employees to form a group that contributes money, physical effort for Societal Causes of their choice. 

b.     Channeling the Company’s CSR efforts thru Employee groups.

c.     Encouraging Stake holder Groups to participate in Public relief activities.

d.     Helping the people in immediate surroundings of the Company.

Stake holders participating in these activities will have enormous satisfaction and they will be able to realize their higher energy.

f)      Process Focus: It is very important to let a Process Culture prevail in your Company. Don’t focus on the Results always. Encourage your Stake holders to follow the process and have faith that the results will come. Some practices that can help you are:

a.     Have a defined way of pursuing Goals in your Company that prescribes a good Process. 

b.     Measure the performance of a Stake Holder with Process Measures along with Results Measures. Having only Result Measures will push the Stake holders to somehow achieve results. 

c.     Promoting a ‘way of working’ in every sphere of the Company like New Product Development, Quality Process, Problem solving etc.

d.     Reward People / Functions excelling in Process.

You can do the above and you can do more. Each company should find its’ own mix of Activities / Practices / Rituals / Celebrations that promote the Culture that you want in your Company. 

But you SHOULD participate in the building of the Work Culture in your Company. Leaving the Culture building to a few strong personalities in your company that too accidentally is very Dangerous. 

Catalyst: Volunteerism can be a Catalyst for Culture Building in a Company. Encouraging Employees to promote the activities that they can personally relate to can be very productive in furthering the Culture. Human beings can generate a lot of Positive energy when they connect to an activity where their heart lies. A Company should encourage this. The Positive energy they generate can be quite contagious!! Eg. Someone who is passionate about Social work should promote the Societal angle in your Company. You would be surprised to see how many of your Employees are interested in Social causes. I know many Youngsters earning just Rs 10,000 per month. But contributing to a Social cause every month! 

Build the Work Culture in your Company Actively !!