Organizational Culture

A culture can be strong (think of Disney) or weak. A strong culture is not necessarily an asset to the organization. An organization's culture will start with the founder's values and preferences and respond to industry demands. However, the culture is shaped over time as it deals with external and internal challenges. Additionally, the culture is shared with new employees. Companies can use a formal orientation program and mentoring to instill the organizational culture during the onboarding process. We can learn about an organization's culture by looking at its mission statement, rituals, rules and policies, physical layout, and stories. Read this text to consider organizational culture in more depth and provides some different perspectives to help us understand corporate culture, including how it forms.

Creating and Maintaining Organizational Culture

What Can Organizations Do During Onboarding?

Many organizations, including Microsoft, Kellogg Company, and Bank of America, take a more structured and systematic approach to new employee onboarding, while others follow a "sink or swim" approach in which new employees struggle to figure out what is expected of them and what the norms are.

A formal orientation program indoctrinates new employees to the company culture, as well as introduces them to their new jobs and colleagues. An orientation program is important, because it has a role in making new employees feel welcome in addition to imparting information that may help new employees be successful in their new jobs. Many large organizations have formal orientation programs consisting of lectures, videotapes, and written material, while some may follow more unusual approaches. According to one estimate, most orientations last anywhere from one to five days, and some companies are currently switching to a computer-based orientation. Ritz-Carlton, the company ranked number 1 in Training magazine's 2007 top 125 list, uses a very systematic approach to employee orientation and views orientation as the key to retention. In the two-day classroom orientation, employees spend time with management, dine in the hotel's finest restaurant, and witness the attention to customer service detail firsthand. For example, they receive hand-written welcome notes and their favorite snacks during the break. During these two days, they are introduced to the company's intensive service standards, team orientation, and its own language. Later, on their 21st day, they are tested on the company's service standards and are certified. Research shows that formal orientation programs are helpful in teaching employees about the goals and history of the company, as well as communicating the power structure. Moreover, these programs may also help with a new employee's integration into the team. However, these benefits may not be realized to the same extent in computer-based orientations. In fact, compared to those taking part in a regular, face-to-face orientation, individuals undergoing a computer-based orientation were shown to have lower understanding of their job and the company, indicating that different formats of orientations may not substitute for each other.