- People & Culture
- Uploaded In: 2022
Culture - the foundation for developing winning organisations
The whole business environment, including how organisations hire, onboard, and retain talent, is transforming to accommodate a more aware workforce. The base of this transformation lies in humanising the overall employee experience. Bearing this in mind, here are a few ways this transformation can be enabled in a more seamless manner to bring out the best in your workforce.
Pairing the right culture with an organisation's brand identity is critical. After all, organisational culture determines the attributes and business decisions of its people from the executive suite to the entry-level workforce. The pertinent question is, how do you define what is good culture?
Defining the right culture
To put it simply, sound culture is the indoctrination of the values of any organisation across all levels. It is how an organisation works within itself and engages with external stakeholders. It is analogous to a fingerprint - for it may appear like others yet is unique to one's business. Everything else, right from products to strategies, marketing, and even inventions may be reproduced, but the organisation's values and conventions will always stay unique. Culture has the power to bond an organisation together and make it a winning organisation by making it greater than the sum of its parts.
Building purpose and values - Where leaders can start
All successful organisations must have a common purpose and a set of values. To develop and continuously nurture an organisation's culture, the values must be deeply imbedded within the organisation at all levels. Leaders can influence culture over time via deliberate and unconscious behaviour. Founders typically have a significant impact on an organisation's core culture. Over time, behavioural norms develop that are consistent with the organisation's values. For example, in some organisations, the resolution of conflicts is handled openly to create widespread consensus, whereas some workplaces decide to settle disputes quietly behind closed doors.
It is important to note that culture emerges naturally in most organisations; if the management does not work consciously on developing the right culture, some culture is sure to take root and it will most likely not be the desirable one. Strong cultures often begin with a process called "value blueprinting," which involves deeper conversations with leaders.
What next after building a culture?
Once the culture is framed, the organisation must work on building or embedding the culture; this is an extensive and continuous exercise and can be led by a top management team member or by a leadership committee. This person or committee makes sure the desired culture is developed and nurtured through consistent behaviour and messaging. For values impending to work, organisations must first hire people who live the values and have the competency needed to perform the job. Good leaders remain acutely aware of the many differences that can crop up given the diversity in workforces. They can detect when a change is necessary and influence the process with expertise.
Having said that, in order to buildculturally strong workplaces, leaders should constantly evaluate what's working and assess areas that need improvement. In the long run, leaders should treat culture as a business goal and not merely an HR responsibility. They must understand that their beliefs and actions will always remain the primary drivers. For the new generation of leaders, one can start by identifying the practices that need to change before any cultural transformation can take hold, and then access measurable tools available today to align culture with business goals.
Establishing a strong culture at VFS Global
Established in 2001, the organisation has witnessed an array of changes in the general employee expectations but what has helped the company maintain a consistently winning record the past 20+ years is our core values of integrity, commitment, and entrepreneurship. Given the nature of our business, being the trusted partner of over 60 sovereign governments, our corporate values have been a key business differentiator and growth driver.
Our global workforce comprising more than 100 nationalities spanning 143 countries* works as a coherent team inspired by these values. This only reinstates the fact that building a company is never a solo task and culture will always serve as a key catalyst for a sustained winning performance and fuelling employee retention, and growth.
* Figures reported as on 2022.
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communications@vfsglobal.com
