With our annual conference on culture and leadership just around the corner, we asked our friends at
The Next Step to share with us their "The one thing they wish everyone knew about culture";
“Creating culture involves the whole organisation, not just HR”
Culture is inclusive, therefore it involves the collective of the organisation. HR develops the culture through creating a series of company-wide assessments however the “ownership” belongs to all. Culture buy-in needs to come from all levels across the business to ensure success and is not the sole responsibility of any one department.
Merridy Thomas, Director NSW
“An organisation’s approach to culture must be holistic to be authentic”
“An organisation’s culture must be reinforced by actions, processes and policies to be authentic. If leaders display behaviours contrary to the culture, or individuals are allowed to behave contrary to the culture without censure, then the professed culture will be nothing but words on a page. Every action, policy and process must reinforce the professed culture to be authentic”.
John Baker, Joint Group Managing Director
“That culture is THE most important thread that holds an organisation together”
“Whilst the Human Resources function spends upwards of 75% of their time on activities that support culture. Culture must be led from the top. The CEO and their Executive Team must take an active role in communicating the culture they want and they have to then demonstrate the behaviours that deliver this culture. The data is clear; when an organisation has a constructive culture, they out perform all peers across all aspects of organisational performance”.
Jo Skipper, Director, Victoria
Corporate Culture is the way work is done in an organisation on a daily basis. It incorporates the behaviours and attitude of the collective and exists in every organisation whether they invest time in developing it or it happens by default.
HR typically deal with culture through creating healthy organisations including well-being initiatives with the aim of benefiting both the individuals who work in the organisation and the organisations business objectives. Happier, healthier employees continue to grow and display more agility in the workplace.
Effective implementation of culture from a HR management perspective will include clear direction, clearly defined success paths and constructive feedback all tied back into the organisations vision and values.
Increasingly we are seeing that HR are working to align their organisations culture with the business strategy. Alignment of the culture to the overall strategy of the organisation provides opportunity for measurement and review. When talent are actively involved in the execution of the business strategy, this is when culture is happening and working effectively.
HR can support management in implementing culture so that it supports their department and overall business goals creating a unified approach throughout the organisation.
The Next Group is consistently recognised as Australia’s leading specialists in talent sourcing and development across the HR and HSE professions. Their focus is to provide exceptional service delivery in the attraction, assessment, selection, retention and further development of the best HR and HSE professionals. The Next Group deliver integrated solutions to organisations through our core principals, which are based around Buy, Borrow, Build.
Register now for our conference this September in Melbourne and Sydney
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