An organisation is more than the sum of its parts, much as how company culture is more than the individuals that make it up. There are numerous benefits of organisational culture and creating an it, maintaining it and developing it is crucial to the implementation of digital transformation. It’s the space in which the goals and strategies meet the beliefs and ideologies of both management and workforce.
It’s already a bit of a buzzword, which can limit its value in the eyes of modern-day public services, but it’s still an incredibly important thing to cultivate - especially as citizens prefer doing business with personable, down-to-earth governmental organisations. Below, we’ll explore why organisational culture is so important.
- What Are The Benefits of an Organisational Culture?
- What are the Possible Pitfalls of an Organisational Culture?
- The Importance of Changing Organisational Culture
What Are The Benefits of an Organisational Culture?
Developing a progressive, transparent atmosphere is important when creating better citizen services that are not only efficient but are also seen as more trustworthy. This kind of organisational culture provides and positively reinforces a framework through which you can achieve strategic top-end and everyday goals.
Let's imagine you want to develop a workplace that prioritises getting work done before deadlines - you could do this by aligning your organisational culture to one that works collaboratively with an emphasis on communication. This could work to speed up the efficiency of your departments, aligning the work environment with a deadline-based goal.
For example, there is currently an initiative within the Government Property Agency to create a more agile work culture, one that has modern environments and flexible working standards. It’s known as ‘Smarter Working’ and is an effort to implement new technological developments and the best practices involved with those.
It’s an effort to enhance organisational culture across public services so that the use of both workplace and technology are optimised. It’s also about realising savings for the taxpayer and has already been implemented in 70% of Government Estate Strategy offices.
Similarly, an organisational culture that stands out also attracts talent, which is especially important when looking to get a new, digitally savvy team on board. To implement the tools needed to digitally transform our public services, you'll need people that have experience with new technology and the relevant skills. Creating a good organisational culture is important for attracting those types of people.
If the culture is enjoyable, employees are more likely to stick around. If the culture goes above and beyond when caring for its employees, those people will feel valued and work more contently. Not only does it create better chemistry in your departments, it also lowers turnover and decreases the amount of time spent on the new hire process.
What are the Possible Pitfalls of an Organisational Culture?
We must realise that, like Rome, an organisational culture isn’t built in a day. It’s the cumulative outcome of management decisions, employee interactions and customer-company relations - which are all influenced by the values and goals the company holds.
This is why culture can change over time - because of new employees or environmental factors.
This can be a risk, to both old and new employees who may both feel a change in the status quo. But it’s also a chance to revitalise an organisational culture and make it something universal.
For example, if a new hire is used to flexible work hours and is beginning work for a company with a strict nine to five, this may mean an adjustment period for the new hire.
Furthermore, the policies of a culture need to favour everyone - not a specific age, gender or demographic. This is especially important for the public services who are working for all demographics, so their workforce should mirror and represent that.
Having policies in place that favour management over everyone else isn’t going to be a popular way of doing things and may increase employee turnover rate, which means you’ll suffer from a loss of skill sets. Within the remit of digital transformation, especially within the public sector, a wide range of skill sets are crucial to retain.
An organisational culture that has been implemented for some time also has the possibility of creating habits. These can be good or bad and it’s up to management to decide what parts of a culture are negatively affecting the work of employees.
Sometimes a certain culture can become a limitation if an employee or manager has been working within the guidelines of the culture for a number of years. Again, this is an opportunity to do some digging, discover the reason and improve upon the organisational culture that is in place.
Influencing Digital Transformation Through Culture Change
Developing and maintaining a smoothly-evolving organisational culture helps to maintain a happy and productive environment for all involved if it’s one that works towards fair and inclusive ideologies. This means that any process of digital transformation is a far easier objective to implement.
If employee interactions and feelings and the company’s principles are the basis for culture, then it’s management that acts as the guiding hand. If a culture is in the process of constant change over time, it’s a manager’s duty to notice this. Changes can be good or bad and so, if you want to enhance the digital makeup of your organisation, you need to identify when the culture is becoming a hindrance to progress.
If any changes are negative, again, it’s up to management to resolve them. After all, an organisational culture is what often gives employees a sense of direction, camaraderie and support in the workplace. These facets bleed into any and all organisational projects or processes, making them increasingly collaborative and efficient. This is especially important when it comes to digital transformation.
Developing a good organisational culture is a worthwhile task for any public service organisation and we’ve got all the information you need to enhance your own.
Utilise the Cultural Transformation Roadmap
In the age of digital transformation, public sector environments are required to adapt and come together to provide positive disruption to their market landscapes.
Our Roadmap will help you do that, covering the multitudes of cultural transformation such as the effects of digital transformation, employee engagement and how to get your colleagues onside when it comes to this natural evolution of services.
Click on the link below to get started.
