Company Culture Impacts Your Bottom Line

Marcianne Kuethen

September 14, 2015

When you describe a friend to someone else, you may use words like fun, quirky, assertive, dysfunctional, friendly, open, or creative. You are describing facets of this friend’s personality. When you describe your company, do you find yourself using similar descriptions? What you’re describing–the company’s personality–is what is called company culture, the force that governs participants’ behavior, determines their level of engagement, and determines your business’s failure or success. Additionally, it is an important component of a candidate’s decision about whether to join your organization.

Company Culture Is Formed By Core Values

A company’s culture takes its cues from its leaders and is formed by what they value most. (Click here to see what Amtec values.) No matter what is said or written to define a company’s culture, its core values are really what determines the culture. A company’s day-to-day decisions, based on these core values, are the fibers that weave together to most accurately reveal the true fabric of its culture. This fabric includes the organization’s authority, reporting, and control structure, its equipment, hardware, software, and processes, and its members’ communications, relationships, and experiences.

Company Culture Affects Behavior and Engagement

From infancy, people’s family culture teaches them how to behave in social settings. It is the soil from which the seeds of action emerge. By the time they enter the workforce, people’s cumulative experience has taught them how to observe and adapt to fit in with new situations such as their workplace. What they observe will tell them how to behave and do their work.

Leaders’ actions speak more loudly than words. If managers’ actions show that they want members to be open and engaged, new employees will be engaged, responsible, pleasant, and highly productive. If fellow team members are open, forthright, and engaged, newcomers will learn to be the same. If leaders are withdrawn and critical, and if co-workers are closed, defensive, irresponsible, and passive, newcomers will take their cue from them and exhibit the same behavior.

Company Culture Determines Organizational Success

A company’s culture influences every member’s attitude toward teamwork, motivation, creativity, problem-solving, innovation, customer service, productivity, and quality. If employees feel safe to raise issues, bring up solutions to problems, act on new opportunities, and move in new, creative directions, it is the company culture that enables them to do so. When there are problems with employee motivation, low morale, absenteeism, communication, teamwork, retention, injuries, and insurance claims, a component within the company culture is often at the root. Because an organization’s culture affects everything in it, especially profit, nothing is more important than developing your company culture.

Company Culture Impacts Your Bottom Line

According to Gallup’s 2014 poll to track U.S. employees’ engagement levels, 31.5% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs, 51% are not engaged, and 17.5% are actively disengaged. And LinkedIn’s Talent Trends 2015 Report found that candidates who are evaluating your organization want to understand your culture at first contact, experience it in their first interview, and desire a better company culture than their current one. These statistics reveal that many businesses don’t understand the importance of developing their company culture.

Because it is the soil that nurtures the seeds of its participants’ attitudes and performance–whether positive or negative–company culture impacts your bottom line. Just as an orange tree will never produce apples, only what your leadership team values in its daily practices will grow. If you want people to be involved, you’ll involve them. If you desire good communication and relationships, you’ll take the time to build them. If you hope for engagement and creativity, you’ll express appreciation and praise for innovation. If you want efficiency and productivity, you’ll help employees understand their financial environment in a way that relates to their immediate tasks.

What you value will grow, and what you grow within your company culture impacts your bottom line. Be intentional about what your leaders’ actions communicate. As you create a workplace where team members feel empowered within their roles, high performance is bound to follow.

Click here or call (714) 993-1900 to request an employee or discuss a workforce management issue.

Reference: “What Is Company Culture?” by Ron Smedley