July Blog: Workforce Connector

Why Company Culture is Important

A company’s culture is what defines the company norms and how workplace dynamics are operated. Each company has a different culture that is dictated by the top management and influenced by the industry the company is a part of. For example, Mayo Clinic is part of the healthcare industry, does business internationally, and helps patients who need medical attention. Because of Mayo Clinic’s position in the healthcare industry, they have a formal workplace culture that has the business norms of helping patients get well medically and employees work together to save their patient’s lives.

Amber Hurdle, author of the book The Bombshell Business Woman: How to Become a Bold, Brave Female Entrepreneur wrote,

“If your culture is how you do business internally, your brand is what people believe about you externally.”

Workplace culture is also what turns employees away or attracts potential employees to go work for the company. Some employees work better in a company that has a causal workplace culture, while some employees work better in a company with a formal workplace culture. Both are good cultures for companies to have, but the company also needs to make sure the culture isn’t causing workplace problems. If the culture isn’t promoting company dynamics and or norms that are essential to the company’s success, changes needs to be made within the culture.

 Author of the book, Start with Why Simon Sinek wrote,

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.”

Making changes in a company’s culture is hard and may take a while to achieve; however, it can be done and help the company fix dynamics and norms that are hurting the company. The first step in creating change in the company is recognizing that changes needs to be made. Surveying employees on what problems they see in the company can be a great first step. Secondly, create an in-person workshop that helps address the problems within company. With this step, make sure it is a voluntary workshop to attend so people who attend will want to be there and will spread the word if the workshop is a success or not. That way, more and more people will want to show up and see it as a great way to learn how to fix problems within the company culture.  

Greek philosopher Socrates taught,

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”