ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

“Culture is the soul of an organization- the beliefs and values, and how are they manifestated.

Structure is the skeleton and flesh and blood and culture is the soul that holds the thing together and
gives it life force” By Henry Mintzberg.

In today’s globalised world, the toughest task in an organization is to handle the human resource,

And hence the organizational culture plays an important role in growth of the organization.

The culture can be defined as the shared values and beliefs that underlie a company’s identity.
Following are the features of organizational culture:-

It is shared by the members of the organization.

It helps in better understanding among the employees.

These assumptions, beliefs, and expectations strongly influences how people perceive, think, feel, and
behave within the organization. It is passed on by socialization.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

There are 7 basic characteristics of an organizational culture, they are:-

• Innovation and risk taking: The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and
take risks.
• Attention to detail: The degree to which employees are expected to work with precision, analysis,
and attention to detail.
• Outcome orientation: The degree to which management focuses on results, or outcomes, rather than
on the techniques and processes used to achieve these outcomes.
• People orientation: The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of
outcomes on people within the organization.
• Team orientation: The degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than
individuals.
• Aggressiveness: The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing
and supportive.
• Stability: The degree to which organizational activities emphasize maintainingthe status quo in
contrast to growth.

HOW THE CULTURE IS CREATED IN AN ORGANIZATION?

The culture is build by the founder of the organization. This culture is passed on to the hired
employees and management and gradually it gets incorporated in the environment.
LAYERS PRESENT IN AN ORGANIZATION
There are three concepts that are referred to as the layers of an organizational culture, they are:-

1. Observable artifacts: These are the physical manifestations of the culture and are symbols of
the culture of an organization in physical and social work environment. An outsider can see,
touch and feel this layer of the culture. They are for example the uniform, stories, awards,
rituals etc. These can b easily changed if required by the management.

2. Espoused values: These are the norms and values that an organization prefers to follow, a
desired code of conduct. Espoused values are considered as the heart and soul of an
organization. But it is not always necessary that the organization can follow them.

3. Basic assumptions: These can be taken for granted notions of how things must be in the
organization. With time these notion get inbuilt into the system. E.g. for students to come to
class on time becomes a basic assumption with time, it is just the way things have to happen.
These are very resilient to any change.

FUNCTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Culture performs a number of plays in an organization:-

 Provides a boundary to the organization and differentiate one organization from another.
 Employees relate themselves with the organization.
 Builds commitment in the employees.
 It provides social norms and hence gives stability to the organization.
 It acts as a sense making tool for the employees, that means it makes them understand why
and what they are doing.

TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

There are 4 types of cultures, they are:-

1. Clan culture: clan more or less represents a family type organization where more
stress is given on collaboration among employees. Its main focus is on employees and
not on profit making or the customers. The clan culture also is more flexible in its
functioning.
2. Adhocracy culture: this culture is flexible but it values its shareholder and customers
more. In this type of culture the employees are asked to be more creative and
adaptable. It encourages its employees to take risks. The culture suits best to the new
enterprises, or the companies going under constant change.
3. Market culture: this type of culture gives stress to the stability and control and values
its customer and shareholders than the employee satisfaction and development. This
is a highly competitive culture and demands constant hard work from its employees
so as to increase the profits and productivity.
4. Hierarchy culture: it has an internal focus and here the main stress is given to the
flexibility and stability of the organization.

SOCIALIZATION
Socialization is the process by which a new employee gets acquainted with the norms, beliefs, values
and work culture of an organization. The new recruit due to being unfamiliar with the culture of the
organization cannot work in coordination with the rest of the organization. Hence socialization is the
process to turn a newcomer in an effective worker and an efficient employee.

For the above purpose the newcomers have to undergo special training programs.

There is a 3 phased model of organizational socialization:-

(i) Pre-arrival Stage or anticipatory stage: It is a diagnosis stage, which identifies, in an individual
the possibilities adaptation of the organization’s culture. It is the information people acquire before
joining the organization from different sources. Psychologists and behavioural scientists are invited
and other measures like audiovisual, hands on training, booklets etc are provided to the individual to
give him or her realistic job preview.
(ii) Encounter Stage: It is an induction stage where a recruit joins an organization and is put through
the job. He compares his expectations and image that he has formed with the organizational set up. If
the recruit modify himself and learns is taken into the mainstream of the organization else he feels
misfit in the organization. Many companies use induction programs like ONBOARDING to help the
recruit to get assimilated and integrated in the organization.
(iii) Metamorphosis Stage: It is a stage where individual learn the values, norms, culture of the
organization. They get acquainted with various individuals, and get themselves adapted to various
organizational systems and processes present there the new recruit is put helped by a senior or a
mentor for learning process. Individual masters skills required for job performance, he adopts new
role and adjust himself to changed life style.

The various researches conducted show that there is a direct relationship between the employee
embeddedness into the culture and the socialising tactics used by the organization.

MENTORING

The word mentor is derived from Greek mythology and it refers to a guide, a coach, a teacher. A
mentor is often a senior employee who sponsors and supports a less-experienced employee. Mentors
help develop their juniors’ skills, provide support and help bolster their self-confidence. Also mentors
sponsors and actively intervene on behalf of their juniors, this helps the newcomers to get rewards
such as promotions and salary increases. Mentoring programs help employees do the right thing by
exposing them to senior employees that know how to do the right thing. This helps the employee
perform more effectively and gives the employee more satisfaction, confidence and enthusiasm.
Functions of mentoring:

 Onboarding – mentoring helps the newcomers to know about the work culture in an
organization.
 Employee Satisfaction - Studies have shown that employees that are provided with a
mentoring program are more satisfied with their job and hence have greater level of
satisfaction.
 Employee Retention – mentoring provides job satisfaction which reduce the turnover rate of
an organization. It gives employees ability to perform more effectively and as required.
 Employee Productivity – because the employee knows his job and works effectively,
employee productivity is increased. Time is not wasted as there is no trial and error.
 Career Growth / Succession Planning - Mentoring programs are an effective way to provide
a career growth path to the employees and reduce the cost of hiring new employees of an
organization as the present employees can be promoted to the senior level.
 Quality – by giving the right training to the new employees the quality of an organization is
maintained.
 Synergy – when the mentee and mentor work as a team, they both tend to learn and the work
done is more effective and productive.
 Reduce Frustration - Employees unable to understand their jobs become frustrated which
leads to higher turnover rate. Mentoring provides an avenue for employees to find resources
and answers to problems.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD MENTORS AND RECRUIT:

The recruit must be:
 goal oriented
 motivated to take responsibility
 active in seeking opportunities
 receptive to feedback and coaching

The mentor needs to:

 be experienced, skilled and knowledgeable
 be able to listen and provide feedback and coaching
 be willing to take responsibility of the newcomer
 be regarded as successful
 have strong interpersonal skills
 recognise the value of a diverse workforce