Being part of a positive organizational culture is important for your professional success and job satisfaction. If you work somewhere where the culture is a good fit, you’re more likely to develop better relationships with managers and coworkers and be more productive.
According to an article in Forbes, “To be effective, a culture needs to be embraced by everyone. When an employee sees that the company’s values are shared and rules are followed at every level, they feel secure and included and can be more productive in the workplace.
When employees feel supported in their surroundings, they’re more likely to be driven by a desire to understand new things. Daily routine becomes an adventurous journey where people can discover themselves and enhance their performance.”
Do Your company’s values align with yours?
In our book, Time To Get Real!, chapter 8 asks you to consider the company you work for and any organizations for which you volunteer. It doesn’t matter if you are working for compensation or freely giving of your time and effort in a volunteer activity, work is work. Whether it is a business, government, or nonprofit organization, a mission or purpose, values, and culture will exist within that organization. Aligning yourself with your organization, whether receiving compensation or not, is important for your own personal comfort and commitment.
Research has shown that when people match their personal values to the values of the company, employees are happier and more engaged.
Look at the mission of the organization for whom you work or volunteer. In the book, we ask you to compare it to what you have learned about yourself – values, purpose, life balance, etc. Does the organization's mission help to maximize your strengths while providing development opportunities? Does the mission conflict in any way with your own purpose or is it complimentary? Research has shown that when people match their personal values to the values of the company, employees are happier and more engaged. In addition, mission and values alignment is a quality that is common to high-performance organizations.
Corporate values represent the guiding principles of the organization’s culture. These values shape the culture of the company, which is represented by consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations. It is “the story” that is embedded in the people of the organization and that story is reinforced by the values and rituals seen every day.
For example, some organizations might focus on teamwork as a value. But, if staff members are highly competitive, don’t share information, or support one another on team projects, it’s easy to discern lip service is being given to this value. In other organizations, a value might be the development of human resources. That organization might have a substantial number of training programs, provide for rotational assignments, and have a tuition reimbursement policy. The values and company behavior alignment are more easily seen here.
What do you do if your values don’t align?
Think about this for your own situation and organization. Just as there is no perfect life, there is no perfect job. We are quite fortunate when we can get 80% of what we want in our workplace, and this, in turn, gives us the strength to handle the other 20%. If in your case you have a good match with your company on mission, values, and culture, see if you can get what you want where you are by tweaking one or two things to make it more comfortable for you.
If you are in a state of conflict and you are uncomfortable in your workplace, then have the courage to make the move you need to make to achieve your life and career goals.
However, if you are in a state of conflict and you are uncomfortable in your workplace, then have the courage to make the move you need to make to achieve your life and career goals. The Life and Career Planning Model© featured in the book Time To Get Real! will help you develop your plan to move forward in a positive direction.
To buy the book, click here. Our book is rated 4.5 stars on Amazon.
We recommend that in addition to reading our book Time To Get Real! and working through the Life and Career Planning Model© that it provides, consider some amount of personal coaching that can help you to discern and activate your life’s vision and move you toward the best life and career that you deserve. All Life and Career Planning LLC coaches are experienced and certified in the Life and Career Planning Model© and serve as your accountability partner as you read each chapter of the book and capture your thoughts in the interactive exercises. To inquire about working with a coach, click here.
Source: Ivanov, Vasiliv, 2020, ‘The Importance of Corporate Culture in a Company’s Everyday Operations’, Forbes, October 7