IMPORTANCE OF WORK CULTURE
Work culture is the beliefs and behavior of people within a work environment; i.e team, department, or the organization as a whole. It is created through the behavior of everyone working in an organization, from the top management to the entry-level employees. It is also created through the frequent activities carried out within the work environment that molds people and motivates them.
The importance of work culture can’t be understated. A company’s culture has a huge impact on its success, and in turn, the quality of life of the employees.
A workplace with bad morale will never succeed because people won’t want to stay, especially when they have better opportunities elsewhere – but good cultures provide incentives that encourage loyalty from staff members by establishing clear guidelines about responsibilities, as well as expectations like, out-of-the box thinking instead of routine tasks which ultimately makes everyone feel valued no matter what position you hold or degree level attained.
Significant amount of time is spent at work, so it’s only normal that this environment should have an impact on its people.
Work culture isn’t static, it evolves based on the behaviors of people in the organization, their ability to understand the culture and improve on it.
Benefits of a positive work culture
- It breeds loyalty and decreases negative behavior
- There will be better performance
- It reduces turnover
- It attracts and retains talent
- Increases productivity and efficiency
- Improves team spirit
- It reduces stress on employees
The other side to this is having a negative work culture, which definitely has its own impact on the organization and its employees in the following ways;
- It increases turnover
- It diminishes performance
- It brings about poor morale & demotivation
- It increases toxicity
A negative environment generally doesn’t impact the organization in the best way so the importance of building a positive culture intentionally, cannot be overemphasized; here are some ways to create & promote a positive work culture;
- Create and communicate the vision of the organization
- Communicate company values
- Hire culture fit talent
- Demonstrate commitment & transparency to employees
- Communicate
- Define policies & processes clearly
- Train and develop