Corporate Culture: Are employees a match or mismatch?

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Corporate Culture: Are employees a match or mismatch?

Corporate culture plays a more essential role in retaining talent that it is given credit for by organizational leadership. Employees decide to remain in their present jobs based upon an organization’s characteristics, such as:
· A positive, future-oriented work environment
· Shared values and goals
· A feeling of trust among colleagues, managers, and peers
· Team members work together effectively to complete assignments
· Employees are given fair and respectful treatment
· Management shared information – good news or bad news

The match or mismatch between individual talent members and the organization’s reference points is a critical element of a person’s decision-making process regarding their future with this employer. When cultural and value boundaries do not extensively overlap, a mismatch exists.

New hires need to become oriented to basic behavior assumptions regarding preferences in work styles, dress codes, office procedures, workplace norms, rituals, and traditions as well as accepted ethics and ethics. To quickly and effectively become productive, they need to:
· Learn their organization’s fundamental, unique qualities
· Compare and establish a level of ease with their own behavioral and belief systems
· Feel comfortable working within the organization’s cultural standards and expectations
· Become a stakeholder and adopt the organization’s way of doing business
· Be accepted by their colleagues and peers as full integrated members of the team

Boundaries for individuals and organizations are those priority items that must be taken into account when making hiring and acceptance decisions, and once aboard, retaining or remaining decisions. Individuals will assess their family/personal demands/activities as well as their career plans, and the possible impact of a workplace on them. On the other hand, organizations will review their mission, purpose, and marketplace and whether potential talent can fulfill their needs.

For an individual, the greater the match or overlap of organization’s cultural boundaries and personal reference points, the more the employer fits their image of their ideal workplace. For an organization, the greater the match or overlap, the more the individual fits their picture of someone who will contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of the workplace.

An organization that establishes:
· A set of guiding principles that are in sync with employees’ basic beliefs and standards,
· Commits to meeting their employees’ needs and providing the means to integrating them into the workplace, and
· Creates an image of the future where employers can see their role and contribution to “making it happen”,
is an organization that will attract and retain talent that is a great match leading to successful outcomes.

Email comments to: Annabelle Reitman, Ed.D. Career Management Strategist & Author anreitman@verizon.net