Does work culture matters really ?

What separates the best performing organizations from the rest? Is it superior product? Better strategy? Better people? Perhaps they do, for a while. But any such advantage will fade away over time if it is not built around something very fundamental. Something which will enable an organization to sustain competitive advantage and grow over a longer period of time. That something is work culture. Organization work culture is pivotal not only to organization success but individual’s growth as well.

So, what forms the great work culture?

Well, the term is inconsistently defined and has very wide implication. Work culture is the environment that you create for your employees. It is the mix of organization’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviours and attitudes that contribute to the emotional and relational environment of your workplace. It plays a pivotal role in determining work satisfaction, relationships and progression. It reflects organizational personality.

Why work culture is so important?

It drives high performance. Workplace culture is directly co-related with how good employees perform, which subsequently has a direct impact on business’ financial profits.?People working in healthy work culture tend to be more happy and happy employees are more productive. It promotes openness at workplace and encourages employees to voice their opinions and chase after the values they believe in. It drives higher satisfaction level for employees and organization as a whole. This also helps companies retain talent and attract good people. This saves organizations lot of costs, efforts and time running after hiring and training new people. Whereas a toxic workplace does not recognize or reward exceptional performance, prioritizes customers over employees, fails to allow internal mobility, denies employees a voice, violates trust, pays poorly or prevents its employees from unplugging by constantly blurring the line between work and life.

Healthy work culture enables organizations to adapt to changing needs. Technology is redefining jobs by leveraging AI, machine learning, digital outreach and robotics, while converging industries are changing the marketplace as we know it.?In this constantly changing world, organizations with high performing culture thrives on change, people are able find different ways to accommodate change and find different ways to succeed. It facilitates people to be more innovative and take risks. In converse, unhealthy cultures do not respond well enough to any change and fosters lacklustre performance.

Culture is inherently difficult to copy. In this rapid changing world, every company faces constant threat of products, strategy or business model being copied. But work culture is unique and cannot be simply replicated. It comes with people’s collective attitude, values, belief, vision, behaviour, leadership etc. It gives competitive edge where people are more agile to changing needs.

It is imperative for any business to create healthy work culture to sustain in longer run. Each culture is unique to the individual business needs shaped by its values and priorities and people who work there.