Too many companies are failing to understand the effect that bad corporate culture can have on their bottom line, and experts warn that unless the top brass embraces the need to remedy that malaise they will see a continued drop in employee productivity and engagement.
Just like a good culture can motivate employees to work hard for a company they believe is aligned with their values, a bad one will lead them to withdraw, says Kate Rowbotham, a professor with Queen’s School of Business.
“People just [won’t] give their full energy, their full attention to what they need to be doing at work. This has a real impact in terms of employee engagement [and] employee morale, and ultimately those are the kinds of things that lead to negative organizational performance,” she says.
But while culture is something most chief executives believe is important, few know how define it or how to put in place a structure that will support a productive culture, says Gerard Seijts, a professor with the Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ont., and the executive director of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership.
“In many ways it’s a little bit of lip service,” he says, adding that leaders often forget that the most important determinant of a corporate culture is what they do themselves.
“It can simply be lack of leadership, people setting the wrong tone.”