a winning strategy · sir richard branson, ceo of the virgin group, is among the ceos extolling the...

1| Culture – A Winning Strategy

A WINNING STRATEGY

DEVELOPING A TRIUMPHANT CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION

Whitepaper – Q2/2017-18

PREAMBLE

While building an organization, we create structures,

processes, policies, protocol, SOPs, hierarchy, job

descriptions and what not to ensure organization’s success,

assuming that everything will fall in place. This does not

really happen always. Ever wondered why? Because we

forget the most important aspect – the human beings. The

people build an organization and rest is just to support

them to work seamless. Organizations generally fail here.

Having done everything else with least clue on how the

develop a positive organizational culture, leadership

generally creates an adverse situation with sour

employees, which further vindicates the failure.

Culture does exist in organizations all the time, whether it

develops naturally over the years or is carefully instilled with

strategic moves by the leadership. But is it really as

important to care for? You must have noticed that many

companies which get initial success do not keep up the

further growth while many others have enjoyed continued

success. This is majorly because success is short-lived if

leadership does not work towards timely introduction of

required changes to the corporate culture. Culture that

was suitable 10 years back can not facilitate growth today.

In the past few years many studies and researches are

done to understand the impact of culture on the bottom

line of an organization. It has been a proven fact now that

corporate culture affects economic performance of the

organization. If it is of such impact, why not create a

culture deliberately, which leads to the success of the

organization.

“If organizational culture is positive, it reflects on the balance sheet”

What is Organizational or

Corporate Culture?

In general, organizational culture is the

values and beliefs, ideology and

general attitude of the employees

towards their work, colleagues and

organization.

If employees are bound by a positive

and energetic culture, they tend to

work like a team with a common goal

in sync with organization’s mission and

vision. Else they work as individuals,

performing their respective

responsibilities without trying to create

a common ground for organizational

success. This fact makes a favorable

and encouraging culture a basic

requirement and a determining factor

in any organization’s success.

Healthy corporate culture improves the

performance of a business in many

ways by improving employee retention

rate, brand reputation, overall

productivity and quality of work.


CORPORATE CULTURE : YOUR FACE TO THE WORLD

The world knows your organization by its overall culture. This is

because organizational culture reflects how your people interact

internally and externally, how they feel for the work they do, how well

they have upgraded to the newer trends and norms of the industry

they are operating in and how readily they are willing to take up

responsibilities. In this way, your corporate culture provides you the

platform for your business growth - best people want to work for best

organizations, your culture giving your best fit of employees; best

businesses want to work with best organizations, your culture giving

you an edge over the competition.

DRAWBACKS OF TRADITIONAL CULTURE

o Centralized authorities, reducing the effectiveness of front-end

operating staff.

o Most team members are excluded from decision making even at

ideation level, thus keeping it limited to leadership or senior

management

o Limited change management process, thus imposing change

rather than inducing it.

o Focus remains on preventing failure than emanating success

o While emphasizing the target driven goals, employee’s well-being

and concerns often take backseat.

o Work-life balance is lost for most team members

o People are not made feel being part of the organization but are

made feel like being a paid resource

o Organizational growth is not a shared goal of entire team, but

remains limited to selected people/teams.

o Slow or no adaptation to change

o Problem are recurring and take longer to be solved

o Organizations do not show significant growth after a certain

growth achieved.

“Employees spend most of their active time in office, it is important that

they feel connected to it”

Happy employees keep customers

HAPPY

Sir Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin

group, is among the CEOs extolling the

"Happy employees = happy customers"

mantra. Employees spend most of their

active hours of life at their workplace.

Imagine what kind of work can be done

half-heartedly. Imagine what kind of

service can be provided by someone

who is himself not convinced of the

service of organization. Afterall how a

sour employee can give a positive

experience to customers.

Corporate

Culture


CHALLENGES OFTEN CONFRONTED

An organization, broadly, faces the challenges on four major fronts, which are critical to sustainability and

further growth –

➢ Low Motivation of Team – Low motivation of team affects the

organization in many more ways than it is visible at the surface

of it. Not only it affects the productivity, customer service and

efficiency, it also becomes difficult to retain the key resources.

Once you have productivity at stake growth becomes a

wayward possibility. Moreover it is largely communicable. A

handful of unmotivated group can demotivate the entire team

within no time.

➢ Acceptance from Clients – It is widely accepted that an

effectively great team can deliver great results to its client.

Clients tend to stay away from demotivated teams. After all,

delightment is equally contagious. Only a delighted and happy

team is capable of bringing delightment to clients.

➢ Attracting Talent from Outside – In corporate world, news travel very fast, specially if it is about the

organizational culture. It is of utmost important to create an incessant positive communication for the

outside world. But, owing to negative corporate culture, elements of negativity linger in all external

communication for the outside world. This makes hiring newer talent difficult thus creating another

obstacle for an organization’s growth prospects.

➢ Lack of Upgradation Drive – In an unmotivated environment a change and upgrade is most resisted.

Teams show no interest towards upgradation be it for self, for technology or for processes.

Human mind is the greatest wanderer ever known. It is the strongest believer too. If it believes

to succeed, it does and if It believes that the organization is going to fail, it still conforms to it.

As an organization, we all are taught the success mantra to be learnt by heart – Customer is

king. What about the internal customers? Employees are internal customers of an organization.

If an organization is successfully selling its culture to its employees, external customers will

eventually come too.

We must find ways to keep internal customer motivated and engaged to keep external

customers delighted.


There are no mutually exclusive

solutions to each challenge mentioned

in previous section. The need is to bring

strategically designed step by step

change to the overall organizational

culture. A Multifarious programme

should be launched, leading to

delighted clients, motivated workforce,

attentive world and self initiated

learnings and upgrades by employees.

This is to be catalysed by unabated

communication via branding, activities

and projects, establishing with internal

and external communities what we can

call as a “CULTURE OF DELIGHTMENT”.

Culture does not develop overnight, it

takes well planned strategic and

tactical Moves towards building your

CULTURE. The multi-dimensional

approach needs to be around PEOPLE,

PROCESS & TECHNOLOGY.

Mission, Vision & Values

We all need to have a sense of

purpose in whatever we do at our workplace or

our personal lives. In personal lives people have goals oriented

to their family and friends. They have values oriented to their

society and personality. Likewise they want to feel like doing

something to make their workplace a better place. Creating a

culture that ensures that each employee in the organization

shares a common sense of purpose driven by certain set of

values, is what will drive them into work each day, and drive

your organization to success.

A defined and clearly communicated mission and vision gives

every employee a guideline to define their own process

related goals and objectives. In a positive corporate culture,

every employee wants to give an honest contribution towards

achievement of organization’s mission and work for a common

vision.

Defining values gives a personality to the organization and

helps establishing a trustworthy and authentic brand image.

Brand values help employees take a course of action in a

certain way, driven by values, be it for customers, managers,

peers or juniors. But organizations need to be careful that

writing the company values down is one thing, living by them is

what makes the difference. Every team member should be

encouraged to read, understand and imbibe the company

values.

PANACEA


WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

Communication is the key

Communicate internally as well as externally in all possible ways. But be careful.. communication is an art. You

need to communicate only spreading positivity around. Negativity, despite being easiest to acquire, is most

avoided.

You can consider the following activities based upon your internal or external target, giving your solutions to

one or multiple challenges:

1. Branding : Helps building credibility for internal as well as external customers; boosts employee’s

motivation level, inculcates values and induces performance drivers

The world sees you the way you present yourself. It is important to create a brand image through a

strategically designed branding campaign for both sets of customers. You may wish to introduce your

company’s mission, vision, values and goals to the world to help them see through how you plan to take

the leap from where you are. Everyone wants to ride the sailing ship and if you are successfully

communicating your plans and accomplishments to the world, you easily address 3 out of 4 major

challenges.

2. Internal communication : Helps improving employee motivation further improving performance; helps

with improved processes; makes employees feel an important part of the system bringing them the

pride of association

You can communicate to your people via different modes like emails, announcements, ESS portal,


dashboards but the communication needs to be open at both ends. No one wants to hear only without

being heard. Hear them out! Lot of times teams are at the execution end and they come up with most

relevant suggestions of upgrades. Provide them with a forum to share their experiences, their ideas and

their expectations.

3. External Communication : Creates awareness to the external world; helps attract talent from outside;

helps in boost of sales targeting your potential business customers; provides a sense of pride to internally

associated people

Like internal communication, a well planned and released communication for external world is equally

important to build a brand. Few activities which will help you with communicating effectively with the

outside world are :

a. Business Website : to not only showcasing your services, your work, your credentials, you can also

communicate via blog section releasing industry insights, sharing expert opinions and lot more.

This will establish your authority in the industry, attracting potential customers as well as talent

b. Social Media Connect : social media platforms are very efficient to communicate to the

external world. You can select the platform based upon nature of business and communication

released. Employee engagement activities get best exposure on linkedin and facebook. Your

business updates will get maximum readers on linkedin, twitter and slideshare and so on…

c. Organic Reach via forums/groups – Business/industry forums and groups are another platform

where you can communicate with external world. You can share your experience, your opinions

and much more to establish your authority.

4. Engagement activities : Boost employee motivation, improves processes, drives bend towards learning

based culture and helps with change management

As an ardent effort towards creating a bond with clients, employees and external world, a bi-directional

engagement is required to be initiated. You can create a communication channel with clients,

employees, between departments and between team members via different modes like newsletters,

rewards and recognition programs, periodical meetings, quizzes and other innovative HR practices.

5. Training Programs : Help creating a technology driven workforce, creates culture around learning,

provides multi-facet growth to people, improves employee retention

Along with motivating towards work, organizations should focus on personal and professional growth of

its people. This will earn them a connect between organization and its people. Employees would prefer

to stay longer in environment, giving them growth and satisfaction at personal as well as professional

level.

“Right culture gives right direction to organizations”


BENEFITS OF A POSITIVE CORPORATE CULTURE

Organizational growth and augmented profits are bi-products of direct benefits achieved due to a positive

corporate culture :

✓ Shared goals – In a good strong cultured organization,

all teams and team members share common goals

towards the growth of the organization, thus reducing

conflicts or disagreements.

✓ Internal collaboration – Teams tend to collaborate to

accomplish tasks. This ensures that processes run un-

interrupted and teams cooperate with each other,

internally as well as externally, always willing to lend a

support to accomplish. Achievements become

collaborative.

✓ Mutual Trust and cooperation – a sense of respect and mutual trust evolves among the people, thus

ensuring less politics and efficient decision making for leaders.

✓ Reduced Iteration – People feel connected to the workplace and thus they tend to spend longer

duration with the organization, thus reducing the iteration or employee turnover rate.

✓ An engaged, motivated and elevated workforce – With above all accomplished, the organization

wins an engaged, motivated and professionally elevated team working towards the organizational

goals with imbibed organizational values.

“Culture may be complex but benefits of a strong organizational culture

are clear and critical to incessant success”


COMMON TRAITS OF ORGANIZATIONS HAVING STRONG CULTURE

1. A charismatic company leader with a strong sense of business direction and purpose

Strong leadership has always played a pivotal role in an organization’s Take Apple as a prime example;

strong leadership has played a vital role in the company’s expeditious success. There are numerous

examples from the industry where the organizational growth took off from being muddled after an

efficient leader took over. Such leaders not only understand the importance of positive corporate

culture and what it takes to build such culture, they are experienced with efficient execution as well.

2. Employee connect with organization

Employees enjoy coming to work every day their love and dedication to their work shows in their

performance. These people are generally the best publicity agents and advocates of organizations

success as they speak high of the company and the people around on every forum they come across.

3. Innovation as axis of organization

Organizations which do what they do, for years, in same way, generally become obsolete quickly. An

innovative approach has always been pivotal to create a strong culture. Innovations can be brought in

HR practices, process re-engineering or even carrying out day to day operations. Innovation empowers

employees to challenge themselves, finding newer and better ways to get their job done.

4. Learning and development of employees

A robust training program enhances employees’ knowledge and skills. Developing a culture around

learning and development gives employees a sense of importance and growth internally. In turn, they

become more willing to stay with the organization for longer duration and implement their learning to

their work improving the efficiency.

5. A lower than average employee turnover rate

In a strong and positive culture, where employees are valued, trained and are provided with a growth

oriented environment, the employee turnover rate is lower than average. People want to stay

connected with the organization, performing and accelerating.


EXEMPLAR ILLUSTRATION – CREDENCE AT EBEX

Strong value based conviction – emanating excellence strategically and tactically

ENCAPSULATION

Multi-Dimensional Progression

o Focussed on delivering EBEX ideology through

strategic & tactical moves

o Impelled by Vision & Mission, setting objectives

and milestones in the years to come

o Value Driven Organization for past year and a

half, consummating the objective of

“Empowering Businesses”

o Focus on Objectives, Values & Digitalization

via PEOPLE, PROCESSES & TECHNOLOGY

o Continued Communication and engagement

with PEOPLE, internal & external

o Ceaseless re-engineering of PROCESSES

o Constant upgradation of TECHNOLOGY

MISION & VISION

Mission : Delivering value through business

transformation ensuring efficiencies, cost

effectiveness and digital dexterity for future

readiness

Vision : To become “Nerve Centre” of businesses

by empowering them through high performance

products and services

VALUES

C – Customer First

A – Agility

F – First Time Right

I – Integrity

C – Collaboration

O – Ownership

CULTURE AT EBEX

FERVENT, ZEALOUS & MOTIVATED

Before anything else, identifying the concern areas

& challenges was the exigency to meet a

corresponding strategy. Post this exercise, a drive

was initiated to build a culture at EBEX addressing

all challenges. As a result, EBEX has delighted

clients, motivated workforce, attentive world and

self initiated technical learning by employees.

Moreover, imbibed values into every employee is a

concomitant result of the programme running for

an year now.. And as an EBEXite, I proudly

communicate the same to the world..

C


STRATEGIC & TACTICAL MOVES

Towards building a culture at EBEX

✓ Launch of EBEX website

(http://esselebex.com) - Among the first few

steps, one was to launch our website for the

world. Informally launched website is a

dynamic with new content being added

regularly. We keep adding EBEX updates,

whitepapers and other articles on the website.

Today website has good visibility and we are

being contacted by organizations like GAIL,

Usha International, Medico Valley among

others to explore our services.

✓ Triggering Social Power - With active social

handles, minimum 2 meaningful posts going

every month, we have been driving traffic to

the website successfully for past few months.

Generally social handles witness the expert

opinions, industry insights, whitepapers and

latest developments in EBEX.

Our social handles are the strongest tool for

creating credibility for EBEX to the outside

world.

✓ Internal Communication - Via different modes,

emails, announcements, LED screens, we have

established a non-interrupted two way

communication with our people, which helps

us in finding better solutions and boosts

motivation.

In an effort to create a great workplace and

ensure that managers drive excellence,

Samwad is initiated, with a commendable

score.

✓ Training Programs - EBEX has developed a

training oriented culture, aggrandizing the

technical, ethical, behavioral and intellectual

facets of every EBEXite.

✓ EBEX Branding - EBEX branding has been done,

internally as well as externally to create a

robust communication channel and exhibit

our values, perspective as well as passion. Our

invincible thrust for conveying our ingrained

objective of “Empowering Businesses”, even

made us redesign the existing branding.

Major focus of branding has been on :

o Floor branding manifesting our values,

beliefs and on a lighter note humor

where needed.

o Communication design (internal as well

as external)

o Representation via forums like

NASSCOM, Shared Services Forum (SSF)

✓ Engagement & Participation - As an ardent

effort towards creating a bond with clients,

employees and external world, a bi-directional

engagement was initiated.

o EBEX Clients : Quarterly newsletters,

monthly tactical meetings, feedbacks

on CSAT

o EBEX Employees : Activities,

celebrations, newsletters, townhalls,

Rewards & Recognition, thrust upon

values via branding, quizzes, Idea

sharing

o Team Lead Team Members :

Samwad, regular meetings

o Department Department : Weekly

tactical meetings, monthly review

discussions

http://esselebex.com/


✓ Festivities & Celebrations -

Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi &

other festivities are celebrated

with complete employees’

involvement, even to the extent

that they mutually create

teams, and participate in these

contests. Diwali bay decoration,

rangoli competition, idol

making are few such contests.

People participate in all events

with full passion and look

forward to such events. This

helps building a family culture,

improving bonding between

peers and teams.

✓ Idea Sharing - Everyone feels

directly connected with

processes at EBEX via the idea

contests run on monthly basis,

by suggesting a change, to

make processes & teams more

efficient.

Winners are identified and

rewarded every month.

✓ EBEX Library - With a focus on

overall growth of people, our

strongest resource, EBEX has

introduced “EBEX Library”,

accommodating all genre of

books. Books can be issued to

read at leisure time.

Best part is, the library is started,

managed and run by people

only, with books also

contributed by employees.

In Nutshell, EBEX is a Technology

Driven & People Oriented

Organization which is Propelled by

Process

Measuring culture performance

A successful corporate culture mean that everyone including

the employees, managerial staff as well as leading members

feel valued and supported in their roles. Open discussions

about the challenges, reaching out to a solution together, and

helping each other in implementation of the solutions,

processes and tools, is how strong teams start and continue to

get stronger. Building such culture is critical to organizational

growth. At the same time measuring the culture performance

is equally important. Few ways in which the culture

performance can be measured are -

Using 3rd party Tools : There are plenty of tools available which

are highly researched and are developed by experienced HR

firms. These tools provide a wide array of options like

comparison between existing culture and preferred culture,

comparison between your culture and competitors’ culture

and ratings on different aspects of the culture. This information

provides sufficient base to bring required changes and devise

a strategy towards improvement.

Via HR reports : You can use internal dashboards and

analytically generated reports to gather information on how

employees are behaving and responding to organizational

activities. This helps you understand the patterns in terms of

leaves, exits, and average tenure. This information can further

be utilized in understanding the culture performance.

Through Employee Surveys :This is one of the simplest ways to

measure culture performance. Listen it from the horse’s mouth..

You can draft a questionnaire about different aspects relevant

to people, organization and processes and gauze the

most appropriate information to measure

performance. With the collected information future

course of action can be decided. The only challenge

here is that not everyone gives an honest feedback

considering this an official activity. But assuring

confidentiality can subdue the fear getting accurate

responses.


Conclusion

Although there are no written and pre-defined rules, neither is there a success formula,

but am unceasing attempt to build a culture which fortifies the organizational goals

and values always pays off with improved work culture.

PEOPLE build organization and the general practices should be people oriented..,

processes will be perpetrated and efficiency will advance with a willing and self-

motivated workforce.

Irendra Chhabra - MD & CEO

Essel Business Excellence Services Ltd.

Plot no 19 & 20, Film City

Sector 16A, NOIDA 201301

India; Ph:+91 120 499 6904

a winning strategy · sir richard branson, ceo of the virgin group, is among the ceos extolling the...

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