This week's reading brought to light major cultural differences between the last two jobs I held. Prior to R&R Partners, I worked at a major hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, ARIA Resort & Casino. At ARIA, the employee cultural was more restrictive than at my current organization. This allows for an opportunity to contrast the two organizations to examine how distinct organizational cultures leads to effectiveness.
According to Sorenson (2009), the culture that an organization creates leads to effective performance. With an ingrained culture, employees are motivated and in turn work more effectively (Sorenson, 2009). Hofstede defined culture as "the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others" (2009, p. 1). Collective mind brings employees together with a common organizational mission, and one that management should foster.
At ARIA, the culture was directly reflective of the hierarchical structure of the overall organization. Employees were very limited to a strict code of conduct, which in turn led to low morale. Management kept employees on a short leash and really ingrained the importance of executives. For example, one rule employees needed to follow was being sure to say hi to executives when passing them in the halls, and they must greet them by saying "good afternoon, Mr. Smith." An internal survey revealed that this made many employees feel degraded and less important than they are. Additionally, rarely did the company make an effort to boost morale. This directly effected the way employees interacted with guests, and many complaints were filed due to poor service. A deflated internal culture hindered effective performance.
On the other hand, my current organization places a lot of emphasis on fostering a strong culture among employees. Creativity and teamwork is extremely important. The organization accomplishes this by throwing bi-monthly parties, offering extensive benefits and providing team building opportunities through corporate clubs (hiking club, baking club, running club, etc.). In turn, employees are made to feel like the executives genuinely care about their well being and have a vested interest in individual success. These sentiments were reflected in the 2011 annual employee survey, which showed that 87% of employees love coming to work everyday. This ingrained culture leads to overall organizational effectiveness, as evident in the continued growth of the company - we just opened our seventh office in Denver this year.
It is evident to me that fostering a strong employee culture directly effects organizational effectiveness. On one hand, the resort placed little importance on developing and maintaining an employee culture. This led to low morale and in turn poor customer reviews, thereby directly effecting business. On the other hand, a much smaller organization placed high importance on fostering an employee culture of creativity and teamwork. This led to continued success and organizational growth. I found that having a strong internal culture is important to organizational effectiveness.
Sorenson, J. (2009) Note on Organizational Culture, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-6.
Hofstede, G. (2006). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture.
Shane, this is a great comparison of two very distinct organizational cultures. It sounds like R&R has done a good job of building a strong culture. What would you say is the primary mechanism they use to achieve this? It it parties and team building opportunities, or are their other ways that employees are socialized into the company's culture when they first come on board? What sort of role does senior management play?
ReplyDeleteShane, thanks for sharing your experiences with organizational culture. I have also witnessed how a restrictive environment can lead to overall low employee morale. I agree with you that “having a strong internal culture is important to organizational effectiveness”. I hope that ARIA will at some point realize the current environment and how it is affecting their overall effectiveness. On other hand, it must be so rewarding to be a part of such an amazing culture within your organization. If you had the opportunity to consult to ARIA, would you have any specific recommendations of things they could implement to begin turning the tide?
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