Understanding The Impact of Organizational Culture

How does culture impact your performance?

So your company came up short of its annual goals or your profits aren’t quite where they should be. Rather than crunching the numbers or blaming the almighty dollar, maybe it’s time to take a look at your organization’s culture and values.

It’s no secret that a company’s culture can have a profound effect on employee morale, engagement and creativity. A recent Align to Thrive article shares how the impact of organizational culture also heavily influences company productivity, innovation, performance and overall profit.

The Statistics: Cause for a Culture Change

• Research from Gallup in 2013 found that growth cultures promote above-average engagement and can increase performance by up to 240%.
• In 2014, Aon Hewitt found that companies with stronger cultures outperform the average company in revenue growth by 6%, operating margin by 4% and total shareholder return by 6%.
• It has been estimated to cost employers roughly 40-200% of an employee’s salary to replace him or her depending on the position.
• Glassdoor found that 60% of job seekers want to see an overview of the company’s mission, vision and values.
• McKinsey found that 70% of the buying experience is based on how the customer feels they were treated.

Creating a Culture Geared for Growth

We’ve listed some tips and questions to ask yourself below to align your company’s culture toward long-term growth:

• Always put your people first.
• Be fully associated to your purpose (mission). Millennials will follow a strong purpose before they follow a large paycheck.
• Foster a curiosity to grow. Give someone a purpose to follow larger than they could create on their own and the opportunity to become the person who achieves that purpose.
• Promote fun. Employees spend more time at work than they do at home.
• Set a clear and concise vision. All of a company’s employees should be working together to create the same vision to promote employee retention, attraction and increased productivity.
• Measure all the things that REALLY matter, not just the profit and loss statement.
• Over communicate a compelling future. Show people they can grow with the company.
• Don’t try to change everything at once when creating a growth culture. Create an overall plan and then start working on your plan one piece at a time.
• Be a role model. Leaders must lead the charge, by conveying the company values everyday, working on the plan and being the ultimate culture role model.
• Strategy is congruent with the culture. Make sure that how you’re achieving your vision is in line with the culture you’re creating.

Read more about the important impact your organizational culture has in the full article here, and be sure to look into Align to Thrive’s IC-8® Cultural Assessment for a comprehensive evaluation of your company’s existing cultural strengths and shortcomings.