As a global firm that works with leading corporates in the Organizational Culture space, there’s one question that we get asked a lot – “What is the perfect Organizational Culture?” In March 2022, a report from the company review site Comparably revealed its annual rankings of the companies with the best workplace culture. This ranking is based on anonymous employee ratings for 70,000 companies shared on their site over a 12-month period between March 2021 and March 2022. Even before we dive into optimal organizational culture, let’s first define Organizational Culture.
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What is organizational culture
Organizational culture is the way in which people in an organization relate to each other, their work and the outside world, in comparison with other organizations. Your Organizational Culture shows how your organization works: how things get done, the interactions between people, and employee relationships to their work and the outside world. The best organizations often place equal emphasis on strategy and culture. Such organizations create a culture that motivates their teams. Organizational Culture is what differentiates your business, so it is important to know the various factors that contribute to your company’s culture.
Companies with the best workplace culture
An organization’s culture is often reflected in its mission statement and leadership, evident in how managers treat employees and the benefits offered. Comparably considered nearly 20 different topics that define a positive workplace culture including compensation, work-life balance and professional development opportunities. Microsoft emerged as the no:1 global company with the best workplace culture in Comparably’s 2022 rankings. According to Comparably, companies that finished in the top 50 in their survey aren’t being reactive to employees’ needs but are setting the rules for how to navigate the new world of work we’re living in. These winners were determined based on employee feedback to a combination of workplace culture questions categories such as compensation, leadership and work-life balance.
How can you develop the best Organizational Culture?
A look at these successful companies will reveal that there’s no one-size-fits-all silver bullet. We believe that it’s best to shape an Organizational Culture that supports your strategy. In order to know what the best Organisational Culture is for your organisation, you have to start with your strategy. As an organisation, you might decide to put emphasis on:
- Promoting innovation
- Growing within your current market
- Following strict safety guidelines
- Being customer focused
- Aiming for a successful M&A
- Looking to reduce production costs
- Protecting confidential information
- Sustainability
- Employee focus
The key step is to zero in on your point of focus. Once you’ve done that you have to direct your Organisational Culture according to your strategy to reach that goal. This will play out differently for different organizations depending on the industry, the size of the organization and the National Cultures.
Key steps to arrive at an Optimal Organizational Culture
- Define your strategy:this is the critical step. You need to clearly define your strategy even before you attempt to align your Organizational Culture with your strategy
- Understand your current Organizational Culture:assess your current Organizational Culture with an objective process that seeks inputs from different areas of your company
- Identify areas of improvement:Once you have an overview of your current Organizational Culture and have defined your strategy you are ready to identify the gaps where improvements could be made.
- Create an action plan:once you’ve acquired the big picture. There are likely to be multiple gaps to address, which is why we suggest that you focus on the most significant gaps.
- Monitor the progress:In order to ensure consistent monitoring, we recommend creating what we call Culture Squads. This means tasking a group of people with driving and monitoring change. Hofstede Insights can mentor and train your Culture Squads to meet these objectives.
- Re-evaluate regularly:Organizational Culture is a dynamic process. Consider evaluating and re-evaluating your Organisational Culture on a regular basis in order to make sure you are continuously moving in the right direction.
Reach out to us to find out about how our programs and solutions can help you build the optimal Organizational Culture
