Productivity and Organizational Culture:  The Inextricable Link

Organizational culture affects employee morale, individual performance and ultimately the productivity of an organization. Since the strength of an organization is directly dependent on its employees, for those seeking to improve their businesses’ bottom-line, organizational culture must be measured and evaluated.

          

How is organizational culture defined? In short, an organizational culture includes those values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.  More specifically, an organizational culture includes a company’s vision, values, expectations, experiences, habits, and philosophy holding it together.  It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time (and are considered valid).  It is also the pattern of such collective behaviors and assumptions that new organizational members learn. It effects how people within the organization perceive, think and feel about each other, themselves, and the organizational as a whole. It includes the ways the organization conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, clients, stakeholders and the wider community. It is the extent to which freedom is allowed in decision-making, developing new ideas, and personal expression. It is also how power and information flow through its hierarchy. Finally, it is how committed employees are towards collective objectives and future expectations.                     

             

Organizational culture is a combination of psychological, social, and intellectual motivational forces affecting employee morale and consequently performance and productivity. The bad news is, it is one of the hardest things to change  (especially if it is not measured and you do not know how your employees perceive your company, management, and each other). The good news is, everything is measurable including organizational culture.

   
What is the origin of an organizational culture? It is very important to understand how it is formed, how it changes, and why. It usually originates from the founders/owners of the organization. Their values, priorities, and behavior set the tone for the rest of the organization. However, the organizational culture can easily change, and potentially move in the “wrong direction” if supervisors and employees are not cognizant about how institutional practices, their behavior, attitude, and words affect others. A “negative” organizational culture may threaten your organization’s long-term success.

Some organizational structures and institutional practices set an organization up for success while others for failure.  The ideal organizational culture has institutionalized procedures to nurture positive relationships and promotes an environment conducive to growth. A positive organizational culture is one in which promotes vitality and learning, fosters open communication and information sharing, promotes civility and collaboration, and offers managerial motivation. Other forces and characteristics fostering a positive organizational culture include: promoting a deeper understanding of the big picture and everyone’s role in it, open book policies and performance feedback (measurement of individual and group performance), incentive programs and rewards instead of only negative feedback, and the development of a connection to meaningful social causes in the community.

Positivity breeds positivity and negativity breeds negativity.  Similarly, when workers are happy, motivated, encouraged, engaged, given a purpose, discretion over their roles, and civil to one another, they are inadvertently inspired to produce more and higher quality work than if they were working in a negative atmosphere. One uncivil worker, a manager’s inability to handle it appropriately, and the lack of an incentive program are factors, which may affect employee morale.
          
Two Employee Profiles. Let us look at two employee profiles, each possessing diametrically different attitudes, behaviors, and work ethics. Employee A (Gretchen) dislikes her job and consequently hates coming to work everyday. She has held the same position for 15 years; she was never promoted nor offered a raise and consequently she has very little incentive to go above and beyond her job description (because she knows her efforts will not be rewarded). She avoids learning experiences and does not take initiative; she has become complacent with the status quo.  Her coworkers would describe her as disgruntled, angry, contentious, difficult to work with, and uncivil.  Her coworkers either avoid contact and communication with her (if at all possible) and if they are forced to interact with her, they typically agree with her to avoid confrontation. Every opportunity she has (in between assignments) she makes a phone call, watches a YouTube video, and/or reads her magazine. While Gretchen may not understand how her attitude and behavior affects others, her coworkers can attest to the fact that she affects employee morale, setting the tone for interaction with the rest of the office. Gretchen’s behavior, attitude, and beliefs impact the organizational culture.
            
On the other hand, employee B’s (Brooke) coworkers would characterize her as happy and optimistic (about her position, her office, and her impact on the organization).   She views everyday as an opportunity to thrive, learn, and better herself, and the organization. She eagerly awaits challenges and takes pride in implementing methods to help the organization prosper. She understands her role and responsibilities, her coworkers, and works well in groups. She is inspired and inspires others; she holds a high standard for herself and others, she loves her career and believes it is possible to work her way up the career ladder with hard work. She gets along well with others and is a team-player. Brooke’s behavior, attitude, and beliefs impact the organizational culture very differently than Gretchen’s.
         
The affect employee A has on the rest of the organization. After several months of regular interaction between employee A and employee B, employee B has changed for the worse. The constant friction among her and her colleagues has embittered her, made her retreat, less optimistic, and less willing to go above and beyond her job descriptions. It has made her less motivated and productive.
      
Both employee A and employee B affect the organizational culture, employee productivity, and the bottom-line. When evaluating your organizations’ operations, financial data, and outlook, it is important to investigate not just the numbers and make process improvements, it is essential to evaluate other factors, which have the potentiality to impact the company. These include the social and psychological factors as well as the intellectual opportunities (learning and continuing education) afforded every employee.
     
What is the psychological and social impact of unhappy workers? Conclusions: Unless all employees are isolated from each other, all it takes is one negative employee to affect the group of employees in your organization. Lack of opportunities for growth (both personal and professional), lack of managerial recognition (of their hard work), the lack of an incentive and reward system are some of the de-motivational forces effecting your bottom-line.  Creating assessment tools to uncover all the factors affecting your organizational culture is essential for optimal growth.
           
Everything is measurable:  It is a common misconception that only certain aspects of a business are quantifiable. My response to that is, “Everything is measureable!”  Inventory, daily productivity, yearly productivity, growth, money saved, money earned, time allocation for each task, process efficiency, supply allocation costs, resource allocation costs, calculations of the cost of customer, client, and/or patient care, estimates of the capacity of each resource, employee morale, happiness, and even…organizational culture.
          
Measuring organizational culture.  As an analyst, the methodology I would use to assess and measure the organizational culture consists of a carefully crafted questionnaire designed to collect feedback from all employees. Anonymity is of utmost importance to allow for honesty and maintain the survey’s integrity. The frequency of the survey is flexible as is the questions, and the rating scale assigned to each question.  

I have created an organizational culture assessment tool. If implemented, this in-depth analysis of behaviors, attitudes, and preferences provides analysts and managers with a solid assessment of their employee morale. It helps identify what lessons may still need to be learned, establishes what specific work experiences (intellectual, psychological, social) need to be sought out in order to develop critical competencies for success, and identifies possible problems that may destroy performance and operational success. If you would like a copy of the MBR Organizational Culture Assessment Tool, please feel free to email me at MeredithBrookeRoberts@hotmail.com and begin monitoring your organizational culture today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As an experienced business analyst, I have analyzed policies, procedures, operations, workload, financial data, and inventory; however three of the biggest factors which I was not “required” to measure was the social, intellectual, and psychological factors inhibiting growth. This was most likely attributable to managerial oversight.  These factors greatly impacted operations, requiring as much attention as those quantifiable “subjects” I was hired to measure. I have an abundance of experience in assessing and implementing solutions to organizational problems. What sets me apart from other analysts is my graduate level training in the application of quantitative methods to problems as they arise in business, government, and non-profit organizations, equipping me with advanced analytical and statistical skills, as well as broad knowledge of how behavior, attitude, and beliefs impact people and organizational culture.

My experience includes collecting large amounts of data (qualitative and quantitative), dissecting the information, and generating usable conclusions in analytical reports.  The studies I have conducted have been used to improve financial performance, strategic management, and operational efficiency. My biggest strengths include my analytical skills and my keen perception to get to the crux of the issues to effectively resolve problems. If you would like to set up an appointment for a complimentary consultation email me at MeredithBrookeRoberts@hotmail.com.