Culture is an important role in the workspace

A company’s culture defines the values of the organisation and the way in which staff behave or are expected to behave. Work culture is important because this is where most of our time is spent; perhaps you could even go as far as saying that work is your second home as the average worker spends eight hours on the job. That’s 40 hours a week. More hours than we get to spend with family and friends.

Dudu Cindi

Naturally each company has their own unique culture consisting of multiple attributes that make up the DNA of a company and their employees. What are employees looking for from their organisation and what are employers looking for from their employees?

In a recent article from Forbes, the publication conducted research with more than 20,000 employees from around the world.

“One of the biggest things we learned was this: Without deliberate and intentional efforts to improve workplace culture and leadership, companies face a significant risk of increases in burnout, disengaged employees and declining business results.”¹

Through online research and personal opinion, I have consolidated a five main points below which I believe assist in creating a culture that works.

• Transparency: Embracing and practicing transparency is not only positive and beneficial for the employees of an organisation, a transparent culture impacts the whole organisation as it fosters better relations, innovations, alignment, solutions and engagement.²

• Communication and Trust: Trusting in your employees to share a business problem may assist in finding a solution a lot quicker. Regardless of the impact on employees or not, employees would rather know than not know.

• Action: Acting on positive or negative feedback creates room for growth and allows employers and employees to recognise that they are being heard.

• Own your culture: Not enough organisations promote their culture as a driving force for future employment. Millennials are becoming the generation of the workplace and seek an appealing culture for future employment. Use the company culture as a method of telling the company narrative. Include a vision of what the company wants to look in six months, a year, or ten years’ time. Sell the vision to new and existing employees.

• Push for the same agenda: Alignment is the key to a company’s success. visibility, accountability and transparency are key factors in ensuring an organisation is working with their employees towards the same goal.

Culture works both ways, what would it mean to have an excellent company culture? For me, it would be an organisation that is on the same page with their employees, breeding positivity, celebrating successes and sticking together during losses – an organisation where staff look forward to coming to work on a Monday and where employers can trust in their staff to live out their DNA and breed their values.

¹https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsturt/2019/10/02/new-research-what-employees-want-from-leaders-and-their-workplace-culture/#495a3c6513f9
²https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245461