Foundation Of Human Skills

Organisational Culture

By : Anonymous

“Culture encompasses the values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of an

organisation. Culture is how things get done in organisations. It is also a well-
known fact that an organisation’s culture shapes its learning orientation. It is
therefore important to understand the cultural aspects of the organisation
before planning any initiative in e-learning or knowledge management.”

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

The culture of an organisation is an amalgamation of the values and beliefs of

the people in an organisation. It can be felt in the implicit rules and
expectations of behaviour in an organisation where, even though the rules are
not formally written down employees know what is expected of them. It is
usually set by management whose decisions on policy usually set up the culture
of the organisation. The organisational culture usually has values and beliefs
that support the organisational goals.

Values and Beliefs which support Organisational Goals.

The culture of the organisation, if it is positive and helpful can help to motivate
staff or at least prevent them from becoming dissatisfied. At IBM. the attitude
of management to their employees is an attraction to prospective staff and
would probably help maintain the staff that they have. If the climate does not
satisfy the needs of staff, then it will probably become a demotivator, - that is
that it would cause dissatisfaction and so people would become less inclined to
want to work towards the organisational goals.

Things in an organisation which contribute to the culture or climate

o the organisational structure of reporting and

relationships

o company policy
 o personnel practices

o work flow and work loads

o job design

o management and supervisory styles.

Things which can affect the organisational culture on an individual or

personal level.

o levels of trust

o risk taking

o stress

o fears and anxieties

o social interaction

o factions and politics

Organisational Goals

All organisations have goals.

These goals might be to make the most profit they can, or to gain the highest
market share in their area of business or in the case of many community
organisations, to provide an effective service to the community even if they do
not make any money at all.

Managers are employed to ensure that the people who work in an organisation
are working together to achieve the organisations goals.
What is this thing called organisational culture?

Conversations often refer to different organisations having different cultures.

For the average person - "culture" may mean that they perceive the organisation
they are involved with to be:

• pushy, harsh and authoritarian

• very political with traps and pitfalls for people to fall into if they are not
nimble and able to wheeler-deal and hold their own in a brawl
• rule and ritual bound
• cold and separated
• brisk, dynamic, opportunistic
• exploitative, all take and no give
• caring and genuinely interested in people as people

People classify what they see as the characteristics of organisations. We

construe and organisation culture. It is socially defined and experienced. The
experience of the things we feel are displayed by the "culture and its practices"
affect how we behave and respond to the organisations we work in.

Culture Control and Engineering

Managers seek to "change" the culture of the organisation. What they therefore
try to do is shape the way that people behave, feel, contribute, interact, and
perform as employees of the organisation. This is usually called leadership!
They initiate the debates, set the imperatives and priorities. If the managers
want to pursue quality improvement then meetings will be held, training will be
done, banners will be waved - new imperatives are brought in to the business to
be integrated by way of activities, expectations, values and sanctions into the
culture of the business. This is business - the business must succeed in co-
ordinated, highly charged ways.

New policies, methods and roles are introduced to shape behaviours,

encourage, promote and require - to push certain expectations of performance
in the business and thus to control.
Spoken of in other ways, culture in organisational terms is broadly the
social/behavioural manifestation and experiencing of a whole range of issues
such as:

• the way work is organised and experienced

• how authority exercised and distributed
• how people are and feel rewarded, organised and controlled
• the values and work orientation of staff
• the degree of formalisation, standardisation and control through systems
there is/should be
• the value placed on planning, analysis, logic, fairness etc
• how much initiative, risk-taking, scope for individuality and expression
is given
• rules and expectations about such things as informality in interpersonal
relations, dress, personal eccentricity etc
• differential status
• emphasis given to rules, procedures, specifications of performance and
results, team or individual working

Organisational Culture and Working Life

We are born into a culture; we take up employment in a culture. We might

therefore argue that the culture of an organisation affects the type of people
employed, their career aspirations, their educational backgrounds, and their
status in society. The culture of the organisation may embrace them. It may
reject them.

Visibility

Organisational culture may be visible

• In the type of buildings, offices, shops of the organisation.

• In the image projected in publicity and public relations in general. Think
for example of the differences between a local authority, a computer
manufacturer, and a merchant bank.

An organisation's culture may be imperceptible, taken for granted, assumed, a

status quo that we live and participate in but do not question. Elements of the
culture may be questioned where individual or group expectations do not
correspond to the behaviour associated with the prevailing values of those who
uphold "the culture".
An organisation may display elements of several "cultures" which may
contradict each other, which may compete. We can even consider the
characteristics of an anti-organisational or countervailing culture.

Classifying/Modelling Organisation Culture

To understand organisation cultures we can begin by describing types of

organisation such as democratic, laissez-faire, participative etc. Such
descriptions in a sense become representative "models" of organisations
(abstractions). The model defines our assessment of elements, relationships,
determinants and likely effects. Our model may enable us to predict events so
that we act to steer our own behaviour and the behaviour of others.

Defining "models or frameworks" helps us to understand what the phenomena

is, discuss it with others and identify what we might do to translate the model
or parts of it into reality.

The Organizational Climate Assessment

The Organizational Climate Assessment is a powerful instrument, especially

when provided organization-wide with specific departmental demographic
separation and analysis. Each category has been designed to assess one of the
key categories, which affect employee performance. This assessment should be
administered anonymously company wide, broken out by departments of 6 or
more people to protect the identities of respondents. Every precaution should be
taken to insure confidentiality in order that respondents will feel comfortable
sharing their true opinions and perspectives.

The objective of performing an employee climate assessment is to identify the

key areas which are hindering production, reducing effectiveness and which
might generate unexpected costs in the near future. The idea and approach is
for the organization not to simply perform an academic exercise, simply
because they ‘do it at this time every year’, but to critically examine themselves
to see where the company and its employees might be finely tuned to generate
higher levels of performance. Once identified, opportunities to strengthen
existing approaches, which are working well, as well as select appropriate
interventions for addressing the weakest areas, should be aggressively pursued
for the maximum benefit of everyone.

This assessment is designed with the following assumptions in mind:

Fundamental care of the employee as an asset

Organizations are successful because of the quality of work employees

perform. When employees are cared for, and the right environment is created
where there are no barriers to performance, their true value to the organization
can be fully realized.

Respect for the dignity of the employee and the sensitivities of human
beings

Humans have fundamental needs for safety and security, affiliation and
acceptance, involvement as well as self-actualization. The extent to which these
and other human needs are fulfilled lead to higher levels of commitment,
initiative and performance. Organizations, which include an emphasis on
fulfilling the needs of their employees to some extent, will enjoy a more
productive and stable workforce.

Full understanding of the realities of business

This assessment is written with full realization of the realities of business, and
not an unrealistic utopian view of an idealized work environment. The factors
emphasized and measured in this assessment are the important levers to
optimizing employee workplace performance, not just creating an environment
where everyone feels better.

Embracing optimization and improvement

An irrefutable trend in business today, continuous improvement and increasing

levels of efficiency are a way of life, and these factors are given appropriate
emphasis in this assessment because they represent an ever present dynamic
with which every employee must deal.

Keys to motivation and commitment

Rather than only identifying potential problem areas to be avoided, this
assessment focuses on areas where human behavior can be leveraged more
positively to create employees with higher levels of motivation and
commitment

Organisational Values

The values of an organisation are used to indicate

the type of conduct:

• Required by employees when carrying out

the operations of the organisation

• That customers can expect from the

organisation

Organisational values often cover the following

areas:

• Compliance with legislation

• Employment of staff

• Customer service

• Receiving gifts from suppliers and

customers

• Giving gifts to customers

• Discrimination in the workplace

• Employee integrity

• Employee privacy

• Quality standards of products and services

Example:

Some of the values that might be set for a

Customer Contact Centre include:

• Employees will act with honesty and

integrity when dealing with customers,
suppliers, government agencies and fellow
employees. At all times employees will
endeavour to act in such a way that others
are treated with respect and dignity.

• Employees will never directly or indirectly

engage in theft, fraud or embezzlement. No
employee will participate in fraudulent or
deceptive activities towards the
organisation, customers, suppliers or any
other party with whom the organisation has
 business dealings.

• Company policy prohibits unlawful

discrimination against employees or
customers based on their race, gender,
religious or ethnic background.

• The organisation will observe all laws and

regulations governing business activity.

When organisations set values, they do so based

on the ethics that they hold to be important.

A Why consider a climate survey?

The reasons in favour of climate surveys.

 The CEO wants a measure of climate upon taking over the reigns of the
organisation.
 The CEO wants to find out what climate issues are interfering with
organisational progress.
 The CEO wants to improve performance - is aware that climate
influences or is influenced by: job performance, job satisfaction,
involvement, commitment, org structure and rules, leadership style,
citizenship behaviour, innovation, competence, rewards, intention to
quit, stress etc.
 The CEO acts on the valuing human capital, and recognises climate
components related to development, learning, innovation etc
 Climate is easier to operationalise than culture. Climate precedes
culture. Without appropriate climate, desired culture will not happen.
 Climate is wonderful metaphor because everyone understands it.
Climate can assist changes at organisational or individual level
 Climate is an honest concept that has not been manufactured to cause
something to happen, as have nearly all other organisational change
options. Climate allows description of something that already exists. It
also allows description of what is wanted, and is readily operationalised.
 Org climate can empower or disempower.
 Climate facilitates organisational alignment.
Reasons that prompt HR to consider a climate survey

 · HR have sensed a need to have hard climate data to report to the

executive
 · HR wish to monitor the impact of other organisational change
processes
 · HR wish to measure the impact of environmental changes

Reasons that may delay a decision to undertake a climate survey

 · Things are a bit bad just now

 · Didn't help last time
 · May encourage unreasonable expectations by employees

Making climate measurements useful

 · There are processes to improve data quality and quantity

 · Involvement of and ownership by employees
 · Secure psychological safety

Moving from climate survey to

strategic climate.

There is a further process that takes climate measurement, and uses it as part of
Deltapoint's Strategic Climate Planning and Management system.

 Use strategic direction of organisation

 Develop scenarios and flags
 Design ideal org. climate for those scenarios
 Find difference between current climate and target climate
 Set project to align climate(s)
 Do it
 Measure it
 Learn from it
 Adjust strategic direction and loop again etc.

Even mere surveys can work better.

 Organisational surveys such as climate, family friendly awareness,

sexual discrimination, drug issues, job satisfaction, intention to quit and
 so on, are generally not well received when done in-house.
 Questionnaires are easily biased to get the answers expected.
 Staff fear abuse of data collected in-house.
 The participant expects some improvement out of them, but that rarely
happen.
 A flawed questionnaire + insincere respondents = bad data.

Surveys conducted by appropriately skilled external consultant typically

pull higher participation rates and better sincerity levels. Issues of
confidentiality, trust, and credibility of researchers are important to those being
surveyed, and the external consultant can better guarantee anonymity of results.

In a specific example, one climate survey conducted in-house suffered 6%

missing data, and the missing data was scattered so that 92% of questions were
not answered by everyone. There were widespread pattern responses that
indicated insincere participation. Quantity and quality of data were poor. The
follow-up survey, also measuring climate, but conducted by Deltapoint
returned .06% missing data, no unusable questions, and no detectable
insincerity. In addition to reports being more meaningful, the inherent
'empowerment' of individuals during the process encouraged ownership of the
solutions that they themselves created as part of the final report.

Climate can be a powerful organisational development tool when used.