Over the last decade, there has been a growing awareness in Croatian Human Resources departments about the need to focus on and actively engage with organizational culture. Despite this, organizational culture remains a rather abstract and unclear concept for many. Part of the reason lies in the fact that organizational culture is less directly tangible; instead, it is visible through the ways people are led, the organization’s rules and standards, processes related to human resources such as hiring, training, rewarding, etc.
It should be noted that organizational culture is not just what the organization dictates but what the organization lives in practice. If management wants to develop a specific organizational culture, it needs to model it through its behavior, provide support to employees in embodying the values the organization advocates for.
The elements through which managers influence the creation and maintenance of culture, and which are visible, include: the types of candidates they seek and hire, what they focus on in work and when giving feedback, what they measure and reward, what they teach and train new employees, the criteria they use for promoting employees.
When an organization actively engages with organizational culture, whether in terms of creating or reshaping the desired culture, the specificity of the industry it belongs to and the characteristics of the predominantly employed employees should be taken into account.
What exactly is organizational culture?
Organizational culture can be seen as the personality of the organization, and it relates to:
- Work atmosphere
- People’s behavior
- System of values and beliefs
- Traditions and customs of the organization
- Norms and behavior patterns
Therefore, organizational culture is a system of shared values and beliefs among the employees of an organization that sets it apart from other organizations. It signals to employees how they should behave to be accepted by the organization.
Additionally, organizational culture is sometimes referred to as the social glue that keeps the organization unique and provides appropriate standards for desirable behavior.
An important part of organizational culture is the values that the organization focuses on, which become the basis for communicating desired behavior and work.
Different theories emphasize different values; some of them include: innovation, results-oriented approach, teamwork, competitiveness, continuous learning, professionalism, creativity.
For instance, an organization with a dominant results-oriented organizational culture will support hiring individuals highly motivated to achieve, have a clear and structured approach to monitoring performance, and establish a rewarding system.
An organization with a dominant innovation-focused organizational culture will invest in new tools, equipment, and education related to the industry, allow employees time for developing new products and ideas, and their presentation.
Most organizations have several dominant values.
A concept closely related to organizational culture is organizational climate.
Organizational Climate
Organizational climate can be defined as how employees perceive and describe the work environment. It’s the perception of the characteristics of the work environment, employees’ perception of the organization’s functioning, processes within the organization, and the overall atmosphere. It answers the question: “What does it feel like to work in my organization?”
There are many theories that emphasize different dimensions of climate, but some typical dimensions are clarity, autonomy, flexibility, teamwork, leadership style, attitude toward work and quality.
For example, climate is an individual’s perception of how clear the organization’s business strategy is, how clear and well-communicated procedures and standards are, how much autonomy employees have in decision-making, and how much teamwork is encouraged.
It’s important to differentiate organizational climate from organizational culture.
Climate pertains to employees’ experience within the organization and their description of what they see and feel happening in the organizational environment. Climate focuses on the situation and its relationship with employees’ perceptions, feelings, and behaviors. It’s shorter-term, subjective, and more prone to change than culture. In contrast, culture is more stable, rooted in the past, collective, and more resistant to change than climate.
In summary, climate answers the question of what is happening within the organization, while culture answers the question of why it’s happening or how things should be.
The goal is to create an organizational climate that reflects the values the organization advocates for. Culture represents the true nature of the organization, while climate represents individuals’ perception and feelings toward the organization’s culture.
How are culture, climate, and related concepts interconnected?
Organizational culture, through specific human resource management practices, influences organizational climate. Human resource management refers to how we hire, how we set up the reward system and what we specifically reward, how we develop people and what employee competencies are essential, what criteria we use for promotions.
Perception of organizational climate leads to higher or lower employee satisfaction, motivation, and engagement, which subsequently affect productivity and outcomes at the individual, team, and ultimately organizational level.
In short, the organization’s culture impacts systems and ways of managing employees, which create an employee climate that, in turn, influences employees’ feelings and attitudes, thus ultimately affecting the organization’s productivity.
Considering all the above, it’s worthwhile to dedicate attention to actively engaging with the organization’s culture. Although defining and shaping organizational culture starts from the top of the organization, involving employees in the entire process of shaping the desired culture is necessary since they are the ones who will live the culture in their work, collaboration, and interactions with clients.
In doing so, realism is crucial, knowing that changing the existing organizational culture usually takes more than a year and it’s an ongoing process.
A mature management that collaborates effectively with the Human Resources department will find the right way to sustain and maintain these activities.
References used in preparation:
- Scott Carbonara: Employee Engagement
- Zoran Sušanj: Organizational Climate and Culture
- Laszlo Bock: Work Rules! Insights from Google on Transforming the Way You Live and Lead People
