The culture of an organization represents the basic beliefs and assumptions shared by employees about the organization’s expectations and values. What an organization values assists in the understanding of what key elements truly matter. These values could include respect, teamwork, customer-focused, visionary leadership, etc. Organizations deliver culture through rituals (meeting structure, customer service procedures), artifacts that represent the culture directly (performance evaluations forms), and even the terminology (lingo, slang) used by employees.
Climate in an organization represents the employee’s shared perceptions (that can shift from time to time) and attitudes of the organization’s culture. Examples of climate elements can include autonomy, employee well-being, communication, involvement, innovation, supervisory support, and accountability. These dimensions and others alike serve as direct and indirect perceptions of the work environment and have an important impact on employee behavior.Why Should You Care?
How do you want your organization to be perceived by the outside world? Whether someone is looking to apply, they are going to be considering the aspects of culture and climate. Improving your organization’s culture and climate can increase engagement & productivity by
- Increasing unity among employees
- Keeping employees motivated and loyal to management
- Supporting healthy competition
- Contributing to the sense of direction
- Decreasing role ambiguity
- Providing the organization with a desired identity
Overall, measuring & understanding culture and climate helps leaders understand and predict how and why people react to different situations.
Contact us if we may help you:
- Accurately measure culture or climate
- Improve either or both!
Additional and supporting Links:
What is Organizational Culture?
Components of a Great Corporate Culture
What is your Ideal Organizational Culture?
*This article was co-authored by Bruce Miles, Ed. D, and Reijuana Harvey, Research Associate at Big River Group
