Company culture is the personality of an organization and includes the company’s mission, expectations, and work atmosphere. Culture is largely defined by two elements: the formal culture (the intended experience as it is written on paper) and the informal culture (how it is experienced on a daily basis by those who are in the environment). What does this mean and how does it impact why diverse talent leaves?
The primary purpose of culture transformation initiatives is to align the formal and informal cultures so that the employee experience matches the company’s stated vision and values. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
For diverse employees, this alignment of formal and informal culture is especially important. A lack of this alignment is the main reason your company can’t retain diverse talent.
Why it Matters
Poor culture is correlated with high attrition:
A Columbia University study shows that the likelihood of job turnover at an organization with strong company culture (as defined by job satisfaction) is a mere 13.9%, whereas the probability of job turnover in poor company cultures is 48.4%.
Executives don’t understand their organization’s culture:
Fewer than one in three executives (28%) report that they understand their organization’s culture. They know that culture is important, but don’t necessarily understand what their organization stands for or how their organizational culture is defined, much less how it is perceived by frontline employees.
There is room for improvement:
Only 12% of executives believe their companies are driving the ‘right culture’. The remainder feels there is plenty of room for improvement.
The Opportunity
Strong culture increases talent diversity:
Building an employer brand and positive company culture helps companies hire the right people (55%), get a greater number of qualified candidates (49%), increase employee referrals (41%), and have more diverse candidates (32%).
Culture is critical to success:
94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success.
To learn more about specific approaches and best practices in culture transformation, check out page 26 of our Whitepaper.
Join the conversation to go more in-depth on the topic of organizational culture and culture transformation our open Q&A sessions and quarterly webinars to ask any other personal questions on this topic, or any other relating to HR, Talent, Leadership, Culture, or Diversity strategies.
