Corporate culture is one of the factors that almost every manager wants to build for their company because it is the foundation for the success of any organization. What is corporate culture? How do you build a positive culture within a business? The answers will be provided in the following article.
I. What Is Corporate Culture?
Simply put, corporate culture is the values, beliefs recognized by all members within an organization, leading to actions and habits that transform the business into a place with its own personality. Culture is a crucial part of determining the long-term success of a business.
Corporate culture consists of four main components: Vision, mission, core values, and business philosophy. And it is expressed through two factors:
- Tangible factors: Uniforms, slogans, rituals, regulations, etc.
- Intangible factors: Attitudes, habits, styles, and general thoughts of the people within the organization.
In general, a company’s culture is often explained through its common values and is usually the intangible factors condensed over many years of operation, and this is also the most important factor of a business.
II. Why Build Corporate Culture?
Culture seems to be one of the most important factors, governing almost all activities within a business. A business without a cultural element is like a person without a personality, directionless, lacking clear goals, and unable to progress far.
All powerful corporations in the world have a strong corporate culture, and some companies with a solid culture may be much larger than most of the managers within them.
To give you a clearer picture of why businesses must have their own culture, here are 5 existing benefits:
1. Recruitment Process
Many experienced recruiters believe that corporate culture is one of the factors to attract potential candidates. A company with a strong culture, a positive culture will be a competitive advantage over weaker companies. Every candidate wants to work in reputable companies with appropriate policies, which becomes even more reliable when both former and current employees of the company demonstrate it. A good culture in a business will change the mindset of candidates; they will see the company as a home rather than just a stepping stone in their career.
2. Employee Loyalty
Besides being a competitive advantage in the recruitment process, a business with a positive culture will also help retain top talents. A manager who knows how to invest in employee satisfaction will gain profit from the dedication and commitment of their employees.
A suitable corporate culture will create a sense of pride for employees within it, making them feel their work is meaningful, valued, thereby enhancing their loyalty to the business. When employees feel they are treated fairly, they are more likely to enjoy going to work every day and commit to contributing to the business.
3. Morale and Motivation for Employees
In addition to having an advantage in the recruitment process or retaining talents, corporate culture also helps employees clearly see goals, directions, and the nature of their work, establishing good relationships in the company over time, creating a comfortable and healthy working environment. This is a very important factor when the brain drain is becoming increasingly common in Vietnam. Many managers still mistakenly believe that salary and income are the main factors in motivating employees. However, that is not all. When income reaches a certain peak, people are willing to exchange their income for a comfortable, harmonious working environment, and respect.
4. Minimizing Conflicts in Business
Another benefit of culture in the organization is to minimize conflicts that occur in the workplace. A positive culture will be the factor that helps reduce tensions and conflicts at the company, as a result of the positive factors that culture has created. It helps members of the organization achieve consensus on how to understand an issue, evaluate their actions, and attitudes. The cultural factor is the element to foster integration and adaptation of employees in the workplace.
5. Increased Work Efficiency
A positive culture within the business helps employees feel comfortable during their time at the organization, reducing stress and strengthening their health, thereby improving work efficiency. They will have strong motivation, dedication to their work.
6. Coordination and Control
Corporate culture helps members of the company coordinate and control their behavior through stories, legends, or standards, rules that the company sets. Along with that, culture also helps narrow down the range of options when it comes to making complex decisions.
7. Competitive Advantage
With all the above factors such as creating motivation, increasing work efficiency, reducing conflicts, businesses will increase their overall productivity. From there, it creates an invisible competitive advantage in the market.
Read more: 6 Steps to Manage Risks for Your Business
III. Steps to Build Corporate Culture
In today’s fiercely competitive environment, businesses, especially Vietnamese businesses, are increasingly investing in building their own corporate culture. This job is not only about building a reputation for the company to attract talent to their company but also to create pride for current and former employees of the company.
The process of building culture in a business goes through 6 steps as follows:
1. Assessment of the Current Corporate Culture
Companies should start by assessing what their current organizational culture is like and whether they can align it with the company’s development strategy. This is a challenging process because culture is mainly intangible and difficult to observe, as well as easy to confuse evaluation criteria.
2. Determine What You Want for Your Company’s Culture
Before wanting to build a culture for your company, you need to know what you really want your business to become. Consider and carefully choose what you want to build in your business. Based on the strengths and unique features unique to your company, use them as a foundation to build your business culture, and intuition will tell you what you need to do and how to do it best.
3. Identify Factors that Constitute Your Company’s Culture
Ask questions about your company, such as: What is your company’s mission, vision, and long-term goals? How do you want your company to be known? What cultural goals is your business aiming for? (Work ethic, employee attitude, welfare policies, etc.)
4. Plan to Narrow the Gap to Build Corporate Culture
The next step in this process is to develop a plan to narrow the gap between the current corporate culture and the desired corporate culture. Typically, these gaps will be evaluated through four criteria: work style, decision-making, communication, and treatment.
In this step, leaders play a key role as they guide, develop vision, and propagate for employees to understand correctly about corporate culture and make efforts to change. Leaders also play a role in dispelling fears during the employee’s change process.
5. Implementing Corporate Culture Building
After developing a plan to narrow the gap with the current corporate culture of the business, you need to implement your plan through the following steps:
- Establish a unit responsible for implementing corporate culture-building activities.
- Start announcing and disseminating culture to all employees in the company.
- Stabilize and develop culture.
6. Control and Measure Effectiveness
Like sales figures or marketing activities, corporate culture also needs to be measured by direct managers. Measurement helps you identify issues and address them in a timely manner.
For a long time, corporate culture has always been the foundation that businesses, and large corporations worldwide strive to build to develop their organization. Some famous companies with outstanding cultures like Google, Facebook,… Let’s define with your employees the cultures that your company will aim for and together build, together bring your business closer to the future.
