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As any business owner knows, a healthy and positive company culture is the key to employee satisfaction, productivity and longevity – all of which significantly impact the customer experience and bottom-line results. However, company culture is also elusive and difficult to define and control. Culture arises organically and tends to resist manipulation. So how can a successful business owner take steps to keep the culture in line with the company’s business goals?
There are a variety of organizational systems that influence people’s behaviours and shape an organization’s culture:
    • Selection systems establish criteria for the hiring decision, which in turn impacts the type of employee that populates the organization. It is difficult to create a participative, high-performance culture when an organization hires people who lack initiative and prefer not to be involved in decision-making.
    • Training systems determine the skills and competencies of the workforce. It is unrealistic to expect employees to continuously improve the performance of their work area when they lack basic business or technical skills.
    • Information-sharing practices directly impact the employee’s knowledge and understanding of the business and the competitive challenges. Uninformed employees cannot be expected to make decisions that are in the best interests of the business. Furthermore, employees who lack information will misunderstand, and mistrust, management decisions that affect them.
    • Appraisal systems define the employee characteristics or behaviours that are reinforced. If businesses fail to evaluate people on their ability to adapt to a participative environment and their willingness to work with a team, management should not expect them to concentrate on developing these attributes.
    • Promotional practices establish who advances to positions of power and authority. If people are promoted solely because of their technical skills, businesses cannot expect to... [continues]

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