Shift in Organisational Culture

What does the future of Change Management look like? As we navigate this modern-day post-pandemic world, we’re putting together a series on the future of change management, observations, and trends as we approach the back end of 2022.

Organisational culture is the combination of values, ethics, beliefs and norms that characterises an organisation. The culture also refers to the expectations and practices that enable the action of the team members. Culture is a big influence on the behaviour found within a company. 

Why is organisational culture important? Culture affects behaviour. One organisation’s culture promotes and encourages innovation and creativity whilst another might be more rigid and conducive for routine work. Resulting in employees either being more creative and innovative or complying with the set rules and routines. 

As an individual’s culture plays a role in defining that person’s identity, contributing to how they see themselves and the groups with which they identify, the same principle is true for organisations. The organisation’s culture forms part of who they are as a business.  

Due to the rise of organisations adopting remote work as their new standard, a shift in organisational culture was forced onto these organisations. What really had to change in an organisation’s culture was the basis of the culture. In many cases, the basis of an organisation’s culture was visible signals like the dress code, what the office looked like, how the job was performed in the office setting and social conduct. 

Now, however, the foundations of culture have shifted and focus on promoting trust, accountability and mutual respect at its core. Employers now need to trust whether or not employees are truly doing the work at home since they won’t be able to check up on them as easily. Work attire and the concept of where and when the job gets done are becoming less important.  

Change management is now responsible for facilitating and promoting this new adaptation of organizational culture. This process in which an organization encourages employees to adopt these new behaviours and mindsets that have become consistent with a constantly changing world is not going to happen overnight. It is important for change management to place a high priority on culture change since organisational culture can make a change in general easier or harder. Culture can affect the way change is communicated and can impact the overall effectiveness of change. 

Change management can help this process by reassuring employees and keeping employers accountable that, despite culture changing, the core values of the organisation are kept. If members of the culture can sleep soundly knowing that the core of who they work for will remain steadfast, the change will be accepted with less resistance. 

Culture, a key element to making change easier on everybody that is affected by the change, has fallen victim to change in these times. Change Management holds the key to successfully adopting a shift in this cultural shift.

Contact us on info@harmonisingchange.co.za for more information on how we work with teams to build successful remote working strategies

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