Creating a Corporate Culture to Attract Top Talent

COVID changed the game for workplace culture, with organisations needing to compete globally for talent.

Over the last two years, many companies and organisations have prioritised both their people and the technologies that support them in a remote world. Many organisations now need additional support to modernise their people and culture divisions so they can retain their staff and also become attractive to new workers in the future. Thanks to COVID, our labour market has become truly global. For so many roles it no longer matters where a person is located, employers can now tap into resources all over the world. This change has an impact on culture and how the business will perform moving forward.

If only successful workplace cultures could be studied and replicated down to the smallest detail. Then we might have eternally highly engaged and motivated employees – not to mention all the ripple effects that engaged and motivated employees bring to a company. And yet, as much as organisational psychologists might study workplace culture and as readily as the media latches onto the latest and ‘greatest’ types of culture, it remains in many ways an elusive element to perfect. Creating a compelling culture, one that motivates and engages employees, is as much science as it is art.

• What is a corporate culture and how is it built?
• Is it possible to overhaul a toxic culture?
• Are engaged workers an ‘input’ or an ‘output’ – a result of – corporate culture?
• What role do leaders play in getting this elusive mix of ingredients right?

Corporate culture can be a difficult concept to grasp but it is generally defined as ‘the way things are done’ within an organisation. It’s a broadranging term that encompasses the behaviours, language, symbols, and norms of an organisation.

It can encompass the larger organisational fundamentals: the company values and mission or its reason for being.

It can be about the finer details: When do people take their lunch? Who gets the car parking spot and the corner office? Is overtime expected? How are newcomers treated? These messages may be communicated by people with either formal or informal power in the organisation. People listen to, and learn, these ‘myths and stories’ and adapt their behaviours in order to be included. Over time these messages become embedded, and this ultimately creates the organisation’s culture.

Download the whitepaper to better understand culture and its critical in role creating high-performing organisations.