Organisational Culture
“How are you getting on with Covid and work and all that”
James Larkin 17th December 2021 ESA
Introduction
Every organisation is built on human relationships and interactions. This creates, controls and influences how your organisation operates. These human experiences in your organisation can be defined as your organisations culture. Your HR strategies, initiatives and even performance is influenced by the culture that is within the frameworks of your organisation. There are many studies that show the importance of developing, managing, and maintaining your organisational culture.
Organisational culture could simply be defined as ‘the way we go about things here’. One of underlying HR roles is to organise a company’s personnel to deliver value and success. The norms, goals, values, methods, behaviours and customs are extremely important for delivering both value and success. Culture is important in a Company, it allows a way for employees to have an understanding of their role and the Company’s role, to create a sense of common purpose. A negative culture will create issues in employee engagement and even retention. This paper will discuss the Covid 19 pandemic and how our business operations changed in response and how this has affected our organisational culture.
Disclaimer: This paper references research statistics that CIPD Ireland have released in 2021.
Employee Wellbeing
It is no secret that wellbeing is documented as a key factor in a successful organisation. Without good employee wellbeing schemes, it’s difficult to build or maintain a thriving and positive workplace culture. Employee wellbeing has been discussed in both the working and academic worlds of HR as an important factor in creating a healthy workplace that will flourish and deliver. To this effect many companies are increasing their investments in wellbeing and there are many examples of different wellbeing initiatives creating benefits for both the employee and employer.
There are many different wellbeing systems that usually consider and include a positive environment, good relationships, good communications, health promotion, different flexible working plans, supportive management practices and career progression opportunities.
Covid 19 has changed how we plan our wellbeing programmes. For example, employee assistance programmes may not have the same impact or result when carried out over a technology platform rather than the traditional face to face meeting. Or perhaps our workloads have significantly increased because of Covid 19 which leaves employees either feeling overwhelmed or maybe our workloads have decreased which leaves employees with a sense of loss of purpose. In general, there is no doubt Covid 19 has changed how we work each day. It is important for companies to consider how our wellbeing has been affected and its important that we understand that no ‘one size fits all’ approach to your wellbeing strategy will be successful. It must be able to adapt to the disruption caused by Covid and we must ensure that just because we are not living in normality during these times, that we don’t adopt the mindset that it is normal to forget about our wellbeing strategies. In fact, wellbeing should really be top of the agenda during these times. The basics duty of an employer under the Health, Safety and Welfare Act 2005 is to provide a safe working environment. A lot of us by now have adapted different safety measures such as social distancing and wearing face masks. There is no doubt that the Covid 19 outbreak has serious negative implications to our physical health but as equally serous is the impact it is having on our mental health. And this is why the employer has a key role.
Employers are encouraged to have a holistic framework in place that not only supports employee’s physical health, but also mental. This can come in the form of Employee Assistance Programmes and Counselling. We must consider how the existing strategies may be disrupted due to different measures, operations and policies adopted. For example, the considerations for working remotely and how this could decrease the impact of our strategies and also decrease overall morale of the employee. Remembering that positive employee wellbeing strategies is directly linked to a productive workforce; it can also have other results such as creating your Company’s brand to attract top talent, a decrease in absence days due to stress leave or aid in defeating unfair dismissals claim in the Workplace Relations Commission. Organisations should offer guidance to its managers on how they can support their employees. Overall, rather than seeing a wellbeing programme as an addition, if its aligned and centred with your business strategy and it is viewed as a source of value creation then the rewards can be significant. It may be worth speaking to your staff to see what generally effects their wellbeing and to gather data around what gets your employees out of bed and kicking.
Remote Working
There is no doubt that advancements in technology is changing the way we work, and a lot of organisations have created flexible working conditions. Remote working has been called inevitable due to the IT capabilities of employees and the systems implemented by employers. However, a lot of us may have hopped on this train a little earlier than expected. Remote working did exist before the pandemic but it’s fair to say that a lot of our views of remote working have changed and there’s no doubt that myths that constrained our ability to work collaborate and perform virtually have been abolished. For many, the pace of work has not slowed down and performance has maintained a consistent level. However, the experience hasn’t exactly been pain free for everyone where peoples experiences and emotions have fluctuated. A new level of vulnerability has emerged and those who thrive in the office setting or human contact will be impacted by a shift to remote working. Remote working most definitely has its advantages and as already mentioned it can have an impact on our wellbeing. Because of the fact that a lot of us were suddenly thrown into this way of working in response to government guidelines, it is dangerous as it was unforeseen and none of us had much time to prepare for this way of work. Many of us didn’t have the time fame to consider how these changes would impact our organisational culture. The shift to remote working really at first depended on assumed trust and granting people empowerment and flexibility to make their unique circumstances work.
There is no doubt that there have been many advantages to this way of work to include work life balance, increase access to work and in some cases a significant increase in overall wellbeing. Digitally mature organisations have a strong propensity to encourage risk taking, foster innovation and develop collaborative work environments. In a survey completed by CIPD it was found that 40% of smaller organisations in Ireland in 2021 have had at some point had all their staff working remotely. To ensure that we maintained the same level of work it is important that staff had the efficient working equipment. A lack of suitable equipment can delay, complicate and make our work more difficult than it should be. There is also the issue that employees working remotely will be exposed to different health hazards such as poor posture due to work area not been of the required ergonomic standards. This in effect will have a negative impact on our employee’s morale and again create negative working vibes. It was found that the majority of organisations (89%) provided essential IT equipment such as laptops and 50% provided office equipment such as desks. We know that happy workers are more productive workers and with this in mind we have to understand what is it that makes our employees happy.
The findings showed evidence of the progressing digital transformation within HR, with accelerated use of online training, online mental health programmes and access to EAP, followed by automation of HR processes and use of HR analytics tools.
Worryingly, and according to CIPD research, nearly three quarters of respondents
Another negative consideration is that working at home can lead to employees being over worked. Some employees who do not attend the workplace may fail to separate work form their own personal life with some employees working more hours than their office or contracted hours. This naturally will have a lasting effect of employees in regards to their mental wellbeing and their overall energy levels. Interestingly, tis year the Workplace Relations Commission released their Code of Practice for Employers and Employees on the Right to Disconnect. These codes of practice are important to maintain clear boundaries between work and leisure. Employers should engage proactively with its employees to create a Right to Disconnect Policy that takes account of the particular needs of the business and its staff. It should consider the health and safety legislation, the Employees terms and conditions and the requirements under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. The policy should touch on communications such as emails, the obligations of both the Employer and the Employee, working hours, raising concerns, and also some wellbeing clauses. Wellbeing clauses should include encouragement for Employees to take part in post work leisure activities. This will help create a separation from the end of work and commencement of personal free time.
One way to maintain and increase the positive effect remote working has on us is this have good social connections which increase engagement and benefits our metal health as we are humans and we naturally crave human interaction.
Post Covid
Covid gives us an opportunity to proactively ensure that we don’t go back to our old ways and pick back up those hold habits and bad practices. Employers must inspect, analyse, reflect and then reinforce the elements of the culture that have emerged during Covid 19. It is recommended that there are two-way communications with staff to elicit their views on what went well and what didn’t go so well during work over the pandemic. Remember, when people are asked about their views or feel they have been involved this then generally boost engagement and wellbeing. Employers needs to think about creating systems where Employees can give their views and how they will work better going forward. Don’t rely on your hierarchy or on a top-down approach. Tap into the knowledge and experiences of your human resources to create connection and social resilience. Certain staff members style and social capital. By getting them involved can only broaden the cope of influence and not only help to build your organisation culture, but it can also allow you to tap into the culture and the informal networks that already exist that you may not even been aware of.
Organisations to become more mature, will need to look beyond more surface level metrics such as new technology and processes and focus on reshaping heir organisational culture. Remember as one of your organisation’s leaders, an important action in bringing culture to the fore is to role model the right behaviours.