Changing corporate culture so that your whole organisation shares a common vision, sense of purpose and mutual respect for customers, suppliers and fellow employees, will reduce business costs and increase your organisation’s responsiveness to change.
What is Organisational Culture?
Organisational culture (also known as “corporate culture” or “company culture”) refers not only to what is done, but also to how and why it is done. It refers to the mental and inter-personal processes that are happening within an organisation. This includes the decision-making processes within the organisation and more importantly it includes the assumptions and attitudes that influence the decision-making processes.
Good Culture vs. Bad Culture
If you have a great corporate culture then your staff will fulfill their desires around their tasks, and will want to be productive for several reasons:
- Employees feel their efforts are valued by their immediate team, by their managers and by the organisation.
- People have adopted the corporate mission as part of their own personal mission, and they enjoy the challenge of fulfilling that mission.
- Individuals enjoy being part of the corporate team and want the group to succeed.
A good corporate culture will also reduce ongoing costs because:
- Staff will be more satisfied with their jobs and therefore labour costs will be reduced through lower staff turnover, less recruiting and fewer training costs.
- People will feel that problems can be communicated and dealt with in an open and constructive manner, leading to difficulties being identified and fixed earlier.
- Employees will be more receptive to further organisational change.
A company with a poor organisational culture is likely to:
- Find it hard to keep good staff.
- Incur high costs on recruiting and training new staff.
- Have groups of ‘social / cultural silos’ with people finding it hard to co-operate within and between teams. They may even see each other as adversaries.
- Experience communication breakdowns (preventing important information from being shared).
- Find that staff don’t enjoy their work and take more sick leave.
- Notice poor performance and inferior quality decisions being made as a result of dysfunctional information flow, poor co-operation and low level of care and responsibility.
Avoid the Death Spiral
If you think that your organisation may have a poor corporate culture then the sooner you make a change the better. Bad organisational cultures have a habit of becoming more and more toxic. Many of the “good” people in a toxic culture will not put up with such a culture for long and will soon leave. In a high turnover situation, some of those that remain behind, do so only because other employers don’t want them. Some may remain in a toxic culture because they thrive in the power games, subterfuge and bullying that spreads throughout such cultures.
The sooner you start changing your organisational culture the smaller your investment in cultural change will need to be.
Our Cultural Change Program
It is sometimes difficult for the management team to see how to change organisational culture because they themselves may have been part of the corporate culture for a long time. (A fish doesn’t notice that the water is wet!)
At HSG we specialise in creating the type of cultural change that focuses on valuing and empowering the organisation’s employees.
We’ll tailor our programs to suit your company’s specific industry and demographic. Whether you’re interested in changing culture in the workplace just within a particularly problematic department, or you want to improve the corporate culture across the entire organisation, we’ll partner with you to help you reach your desired outcomes.
Our Corporate Culture Change Programs often address a wide variety of issues using multiple learning methods. For example:
- We can help you resolve conflict
We will identify the type of conflict (including abrasive behaviours, manipulation, aggression and bullying) and determine the source. Solutions may involve: clearly communicating job roles; one on one coaching; team bonding; teaching communication skills and opening lines of communication throughout the organisations’s hierarchy. - We develop your staff communication skills
We teach staff “effective communication techniques” using interactive training sessions and workshops. We also look at company guidelines to change policies that may be restricting the process of open communication. We help create a positive work environment that condones open and effective communication, including policies such as “open doors” and 360 degree feedback. - Increase staff morale and co-operation
Using various team building activities, workshops, coaching, mentoring etc. - Improve the emotional and physical health of your staff
By introducing a health and wellness program for your staff you not only help to improve their health and thereby reduce sick leave, but you also increase staff loyalty and morale by demonstrating that the company cares about its staff. We also teach stress management and mindfulness techniques, and how to be more resilient in changing circumstances. - Develop the capabilities of the management team
We can provide business coaching, implement leadership development programs and mentoring as well as providing one-on-one wellness coaching.
We are experts in creating holistic and productive workplace culture and environments. We know how to change organisational culture in a cost effective way.
Our network of facilitators provides access to leading experts in a wide range of fields to successfully implement organisational culture change.
HSG’s Culture of Wellness© program ensures that wellness becomes part of your company’s culture, with both a top-down and bottom-up approach. It is equally applicable to corporate, not for profit, and educational organisations.
Contact Us
Please contact us on 1300 889 073 or email us to discuss how we can assist your company with the task of changing organisational culture. We are able to assist with cultural change management in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and most other large cities in Australia.
More Corporate Wellness Services
We provide a comprehensive range of corporate wellness services, including the following: