Managing The Work Culture

Before having a glance at some of the hurdles a professional may face as a new manager, it is crucial for his seniors to provide him with a deeper perspective of the company’s corporate and departmental cultures. The work culture that a manager inherits may either be positive, negative or indifferent depending on the larger environment of the corporate.

In general, culture is an extremely broad topic to be discussed, whether it maybe within an organization or within an industry. In this scenario, culture is not related to an individual’s country of origin, religion or ethnicity, but to the encircled feeling that the individual gets while working under a specific industry or designation.

The total work culture can be further subdivided into three major sets of culture, which are −

• The culture within the whole industry,
• The culture within the company and
• The culture within the specific department of that company.

This perplexing truth behind work culture is that the cultures do not align properly and tend to overlap on each other, which might not be a bad thing at all. In fact, it is observed that the more it is overlapped, greater are the chances of success.

It is crucial to determine the amount of cultural overlap there might be prevalent in between the specific department, the company and the industry, so the following questions can help a person to determine the work culture that surrounds him/her.

With respect to the Industry

• Is the environment conservative?
• Is there a specific dress code?
• Is type of business very analytical in nature? (research, consultation, etc.)
• Is the environment creative? (consumer products, advertising, etc.)

With respect to the Company

• What is mostly valued by the senior management?

• In what way does the company communicate with outer stakeholders, media, etc. (public relations and corporate communications)?

• How well is the corporate culture actually defined by the organization?

• How are the management of performances and feedback analysis conducted by the company (may be either hierarchical analysis, 360-degree feedback analysis, or reviews from peers, etc.)?

In context of the Department

• Is there a prevalence of good communication and understanding among departments, or do the employees or the groups of employees prefer working in silos?

• Is there a competitive mentality among various groups in the company? For example, is there competition for budgets made, resources provided, work culture, etc.?

In addition to this, it is also important to tell them the basic variations or similar aspects among the departments, which may include operations, human resources, marketing, finance, sales, research and development, etc.