Shift in organisational culture requires collaborative effort

Workplace culture defines the character of an organisation, and it is this character that makes it unique and different from others. Organisational culture constitutes the beliefs, traditions, values and behaviour of the company. A positive culture is an asset, which drives engagement, happiness and productivity in an organisation.

Today, everyone is aware that the culture of an organisation is the most important thing, which becomes its USP and creates a niche for it in the market, giving it that much-required edge over other companies. These are very exciting times, where organisations have to be dynamic and constantly evolve to survive. According the Global Culture Survey, conducted by PwC, close to 80 per cent of the people surveyed agreed their organisation’s culture needs to evolve in the next five years.

Here are a couple of ways in which this cultural evolution can be brought about at the workplace:

Aligning the culture with strategy and business operations

According to the Global Culture Survey, around 71 per cent CEOs feel that culture is very critical to business. To witness fascinating results in terms of business success, it is very important for organisations to make sure that their culture is aligned with the strategies and the operating model of the business. To make this happen, the first important thing is to understand what our culture is, how it is supporting our intentions, and what changes are required in the positive direction.

Identifying the critical behaviours

It takes time to implement a cultural shift. To make this happen, it is very crucial to identify the critical behaviours to be practised at every level of the organisation. These can vary from being innovative and collaborative, to being agile or customer centric.

Showing what you believe

As per the Global Culture Survey, many leaders have culture as their agenda, but employees do not see it in their approach or actions. Therefore, it is essential for leaders to show people through their actions that they are up to the task. They need to do something concrete that sends a positive message to the employees. If it works, they should try to do it more often.

Passing down the values

Changing of culture starts from the top. It is very important for all the top leaders to be on the same page of the culture agenda. When the company is small it is easy for the founders and senior managers to communicate and connect with the people and pass on the values. But as the company grows big, it becomes more difficult for the leaders to communicate with their employees. Therefore, it is important for senior people to meet their juniors, and people across hierarchies to convey and clarify their agenda to them.

Taking culture change as a collaborative and continuous process

As mentioned earlier, changing the culture is a time-consuming process. Very often, organisations and leaders who try to change the workplace culture find their efforts failing. To ensure success, it is very important to understand that the journey of changing the culture of an organisation is a tough task. It takes a collaborative effort from each employee, team member and leader to implement change. Be ready to take down all the obstacles encountered on the way as one unified force.