The Character of a Corporation: How the Company’s Culture Can Make or Break the Business
Company’s culture is very important. “No business strategy or program can or will succeed without the appropriate organizational culture in place.” (Goffee & Jones, 2000).
It has got the ability to make or break the business. Culture can be defined as different types of values and practices shared by employees of the company. Company always needs to have very good adaptive culture; then company can easily outperform the competitors and shine in its business. Organizational culture is composed of various products and features within the organization. It includes people, technology, objectives, size, unions, policies, and the failure and success rates of the organization. Organizational culture represents a set of shared goals, shared values, shared beliefs, shared objectives and shared habits among the employees within the organization. Adjusting the organizational culture to create positive results is the responsibility of the HR professionals within the organization. It is their responsibility to choose the right path which correctly matches the culture and behaviour of the employees. The decisions related to culture are taken at the top level of the organization. In some organizations, open culture is practised and in such situations the decisions are taken at the lower level and participative decision making is encouraged in such organizations. A clear and better understanding of the culture prevailing in the organization is important to frame HR policies and strategies.
IBT Ltd always takes care of this issue sincerely. It knows that without having a good culture, it is not possible to stay in this competitive world. Very important strategy maintained in IBT Ltd is that top management always cares about the culture. They decide how the culture should look like and according to that they move every employee towards preferred culture. IBT Ltd is very well aware about this company culture.
Saying something more about company culture, it often changes when time changes. This is because employees do not remain static for longer period of time. When an employee leaves the company or when a new employee joins, there is a big chance for changing the culture. If a company is having a strong culture, there is nothing to worry. A small change won’t make any difference. At the same time, one issue that should be taken into consideration is if a new employee tries to adopt his/her culture into a group, then such condition has a chance to change the culture of the company. IBT Ltd is very much careful in this regard. If any such changes happen, it is sure that it will affect the overall functioning of the company. These kinds of changes always affect the company very badly. These types of changes can be categorized as negative changes.
But, there are some positive changes that can happen in the company. These are changes happening to the company when the company grows. The present situation of the company won’t be the same which was at the time of start up. During the intervening period, many types of changes can happen due to the changes in laws, rules and regulations or business climate. When changes happen in these areas, surely company culture will also change. Company should accept these types of changes.
Lot of changes took place in IBT Ltd in the past. Some changes were positive and some were negative. Some were intended changes, but some were unintended. However, till now nothing adverse happened due to cultural changes. It is just because the management is always very cautious and is very much aware about the changes. IBT Ltd management knows these changes can make or break its business.
Analysis of the culture in organization
There are many ways to analyze the company culture. In IBT Ltd, there is a person or consultant who does this job. Apart from that, top leaders and management always keep an eye on the employees to observe how the employees act, what they do etc. They always look for certain behaviour and symbols. Another way to analyze is always listen to what the employees have to say. Tell them to write about the company. These are the different ways in which IBT Ltd analyzes the culture in the company.
Impact of culture on employee
Cultural change always makes an impact on employees working in the company. There is no doubt in it. Culture has got very good role in shaping the employee. It can be in their enjoyment in the office while doing the work, their work relationship etc. In other words, culture is just described as one’s personality. Personality is made up of different possessions. It can be morals, attitude, assumptions, well being, experiences, habits etc. Similarly, culture is also made up of these possessions. And it is some sort of behaviour which is shared by different people. The culture in an organization is made up of experience of an employee. Culture of an organization is always influenced by the decision making or strategic principles of the founder or top management people.
Good culture always creates a good value in employees. This will help organization to move forward. If culture of a company is strong, its impact will always be good. IBT Ltd underwent some testing stages during the last year. When IBT Ltd recruited new employees into the company, they had vast cultural differences. Their culture influenced other employees also. However, because of right involvement of top officials the new culture didn’t spread. Knowing fully well that it is very difficult to change, top officials of the company worked very hard to bring new employees to follow the company’s work culture by giving effective training to them.
Recommendations for improving effectiveness of the organization’s culture
For improving the effectiveness of the organization’s culture, some recommendations are presented here. By following these recommendations IBT Ltd can expect some improvement.
While implementing good culture, one should always keep in mind about company’s mission, values and vision. Always be aware about the future while implementing the culture. Company culture should always align according to company’s strategic goals. Only then success will come. A good action plan should be developed that can influence the good stuff in current culture. Always correct the areas, which are not in correct position. Always review the past successful implements and policies. Develop models, which are very useful in creating one’s behaviours and actions. Always maintain effective communication with all the employees about the culture. Besides this, communication is needed about new culture. Only then, it will reach to all the employees.
Culture in a company must always align to goal of the company. If culture and goal are in different directions, then company cannot improve its culture in any aspects. Always try to communicate more with new employees to understand about their culture. It is because once it is understood it will be very easy for the company to bring them into the company’s culture. A good strategy of bringing all together in one roof is very good idea in improving the culture of the company. One concern is very important that only good culture can bring more productivity in employees. Thus, culture has got very good role in success and effectiveness of company.
Analyzing organizational culture using questionnaire method
Questionnaire is used to search the information related to the culture prevailing in the organization. The culture within the organization is a critical aspect which guides and instructs the actions of all employees and controls the reaction of the employees in all levels. The culture of the company gives value to the firm. The culture is what differentiates one organization from another. The differentiation is not only made domestically but it is also made internationally.
A questionnaire related to the organizational culture is framed to analyze how well the concept of organizational culture is practised within the organization and whether the set of cultures that are being practised in the organization is satisfied and supported by the employees. The organizational culture involves variety of shared phenomenon such as behaviour, values, assumptions, organization’s dressing, language, myths, beliefs, symbol of status and authority and also includes ceremonies and rituals which altogether describe the character and norms prevailing in the organization. A questionnaire is distributed among the employees to analyze the impact of the culture on the employees and what all things have to be improved to increase the employee’s satisfaction.
Questionnaire is administered among the employees to analyze the relationship between the employee satisfaction and culture that is prevailing within the organization. The questionnaire is distributed among ten employees in the organization. These ten employees are considered as sample for the study.
From the data gathered from the questionnaire it is found that there are many variables that have negative and positive impact on the employee’s performance and satisfaction. It is found that certain dimensions like customer orientation, performance orientation, reward system and organizational integration have a positive impact on the employees and another set of dimensions such as lack of authority, inflexibility towards change, conflict resolution, structure of the task and the management style are negative impact among the employees. Even though there is no separate HR department within the organization, the degree of job satisfaction among the employees has not been affected, but there are some problems that exist within the organization. Therefore, this factor can be used to predict the employee’s perception about the organizational culture. Critical incident method is used to identify whether the culture prevailing within the organization has a negative or positive impact among the employees. It is a qualitative approach which is used to analyze the job by using specific measures and descriptions that are focused on the behaviour of the employees working in the organization. This method is used in organization to understand the effective and ineffective behaviour of the employees. The behaviour of the employees in the critical incident is measured by their managers within the organization. These particular critical incidents or the situation in the organization and the way in which the employees react and manage the situation are analyzed. The absence of HR department within the organization is considered as a big problem for the employees. But, this never leads to the decrease in their performance. The method of critical incident is taken as an appropriate method for analyzing the individual performance of the employees and taking appropriate decisions related to them. This method lists out the poor and outstanding behaviour of the employees. This method has a reduced rate of bias in its results. Even though it is an effective method, it possesses certain limitations. The incidents that are negative in nature will be more noticed than the incidents that are positive in nature.
Among these dimensions data can be grid into two axes such as sociability and solidarity. The sociability factors are customer orientation, disposition to change, organizational integration and conflict resolution. The solidarity factors involved are the management style in the organization, performance orientation, reward system and the locus of authority. In this method the superior or the manger has a tendency to note more complaints about the behaviour of the employees in the particular incident and in some cases he may be too busy or forget to record the actual behaviour of the employees with respect the different incidents.
Analyzing organizational culture using interview method
The interview method is a face to face interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee on a particular topic, but the objective for conducting interview may differ according to its purpose. The organizational culture can be analyzed through the process of conducting interview among the staffs within the organization. This method is practised to understand the impact of culture on the performance and satisfaction of the employees in the organization. The interview method taken for the study is unstructured and the focus group consists of the employees working in the organization. The sample group consists of each occupational group. The results derived from the interview method show certain problems that are faced by the employees in the organization. By interviewing the focus group, some problems are highlighted such as poor top – bottom communication, lack of participation of employees in discussing certain issues related to the organization, lack of promotion, unclear and unspecific policies and poor management style and governance.
Conclusion
From the above analysis done on various methods, it is very clear that IBT Ltd must have to establish an effective and efficient human resource department in the organization, so that all these problems can be solved very easily. The overall productivity of the organization depends upon the capability of the workforce. The culture within the organization has a significant impact on the employees working in the organization. In order to create a better organizational culture, it is essential to have an HR department within an organization. Effective management of the human resources brings out effective results within the organization. Therefore, it is recommended to the organization to frame a separate HR department within the organization to handle the HR related issues and practices.
Reference List
Goffee, R. & Jones, G., 2000. The character of a corporation. MB: Means Business. Web.