Corporate Culture of a Company: What It Is, What Elements It Consists of, and How It Affects Business Success

Code of rules, internal structure, and general parties on holidays are some of the first associations when it comes to corporate culture. And meanwhile, corporate culture goes far beyond the job hierarchy or hanging out with colleagues and means a lot to both internal and external communications of the company, regardless of the brand from the best payout online casino to a local makeup brand. Why is it important and what role does it play in the organization?

What Is Corporate Culture of a Company?

The corporate culture of a company is a much wider notion than it is usually considered. It isn’t only social events, daily schedules and job structure but also values, traditions and principles, which form the basis of work and communication.

Corporate culture is a powerful tool for internal marketing and personnel management: it helps to build a strong HR brand. The main thing is to be based on the values and norms of a particular company and based on the specifics of the business and goals of work. The formation of corporate culture should not happen spontaneously. If every person spontaneously adds his or her own ideas, the company culture will turn from a unified system of values into a disjoint set of rules, which no one wants to follow.

It’s up to the company to structure the chaos. The management decides what corporate culture is necessary and appropriate for the organization: for example, for a startup it is free and democratic, while for the state structures it is more strict and conservative.

Elements of Corporate Culture

In fact, corporate culture is not only an internal tool but also the “face” of the company. It includes many elements, which together form a coherent idea about the company.

The Global Goals of the Organization, Its Philosophy, and Its Place in the Industry

Without understanding where the company is going, the employee can neither grow in the company himself, nor reach common goals together with the colleagues. Company mission and market position are essential elements of the organization’s corporate culture. Thanks to them, employees understand why they have to make efforts and what prospects await them. “The Big Idea” unites the team and sets you apart from your competitors.

Personal Goals and Opportunities for Each Employee

Even the hardest and most motivated employee can’t work effectively without a plan of action and a clearly established “point B”. Let each person in the company have a personal route for development and growth. An employee who understands his own strengths and responsibilities in the common cause will do more good.

Order and Traditions

How employees spend their lunch breaks, what they do after work and at weekends – it’s impossible to create a positive corporate culture without traditions of free time. 

For example, employees get together in the office every Friday for board games, and if it’s someone’s birthday, they eat cake together and give presents. In such an environment, people feel valued not only as professionals, but also as individuals.

Norms and Principles, Corporate Ethics

More authoritarian types of corporate cultures value obedience and adherence to rules, while freer types value individuality and independence. An employee, when he or she comes to the company, in one way or another checks the corporate values against his or her own – a match either happens or doesn’t happen.

Motivation System

Positive motivation works much better than negative. Healthy competition in the rating system inspires productive work. Praise is also a good motivator when colleagues publicly share feedback about each other’s work. The established model of corporate culture also determines the conditions under which an employee receives compensation: somewhere an employee will be rewarded for a hundred sales, and somewhere he or she will be praised for every tenth sale.

Appearance and Uniform Corporate Style

One company prefers business style with white shirts, in another company employees wear jeans and T-shirts every day, and in third company employees are offered uniforms in brand colors. Style can be used to infer the company’s values: strictness and restraint or informality and individuality.

Functions of Corporate Culture

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Corporate culture forms the standards that the company broadcasts to the world and with which it attracts customers, employees and partners.

Adaptive

Due to the developed system of values and traditions, newcomers read the atmosphere of the company faster, get used to the team and adjust to the same wave with the team.

Identifying

Employees are aware of their contribution to the common cause and personal responsibility for the company processes.

Motivational

Corporate culture dictates the mission of the brand and inspires the team to give their all to achieve global goals. To align the company’s strategy with current business objectives and priorities, it’s important to manage the corporate culture and consciously make changes depending on where the business is headed.

Engaging

The team becomes more cohesive: employees share the same traditions and take an active part in the life of the company.

Managerial

The corporate culture is based on common standards and goals for all employees. This simplifies personnel management even in a large company with a branched structure.

System-forming

Due to corporate culture individual employees, teams, departments and regional divisions of the organization work together as a single organism.

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