Corporate Culture: What it is and Why it’s Important

What is Corporate Culture? 

Corporate Culture is the values, shared beliefs, and practices of an organisation. Does your organisation benefit from a successful corporate culture?

A good way of finding out what a company's Culture is like is to ask the employees. Good questions to start could be:

• How do people communicate with each other?
• Is the work stressful?
• Is the work environment relaxed or formal?
• How do staff relate to each other?
• Is there space to voice an opinion?

The Role of Values in Corporate Culture

A company's mission statement defines its objectives and values. It concisely communicates the purpose of the company's existence to employees, customers and key stakeholders. To be meaningful, a company's values should be consistent with its mission and objectives, and reflect its future vision.

For example, a company that values entrepreneurship will cultivate a culture that encourages risk-taking, innovation, and learning from mistakes. Whereas, an organisation that is results-orientated will focus their corporate culture on achieving results and hitting targets.

To be effective, companies should collaboratively create value statements with input from employees at all levels instead of imposing them from the top-down. When employees actively participate in defining a company's values, they are more likely to embody and uphold them in their daily work.

Beyond Statements - Action!

To develop a positive corporate culture, an organisation must have procedures and practices that reflect its values.

For example, an organisation that values collaboration must give employees the time and space to work together to achieve their goals. Whereas an organisation that values innovation and creativity must have practices that encourage employees to think outside the box and reward them for it!

By adopting policies and practices that reflect an organization's values, employees can embody them in their behaviour, contributing to a positive corporate culture.

Procedures and practises that put values into action should be dynamic. Feedback and ideas from employees, customers and stakeholders should drive procedural change. This ensures that a company's values remain evident in its actions.

The Role of Team Building Activities in Reinforcing Corporate Culture

Team building activities are an excellent way of exploring organisational values, whether defining them for the first time, reviewing them or communicating them to staff.

Moreover, Catalyst created a variety of team building activities to explore and reinforce corporate objectives and values, while also promoting networking and team bonding.

One of our most popular team building activities is a values-based Go Team GPS treasure hunt.

Go Team encourages employees to work collaboratively and learn more about the company's core values. In particular, the scavenger hunt is entirely customizable to align with the specific values of your organization.

For instance, if one of the company's core values is "innovation", Go Team can include tasks requiring participants to develop creative solutions. Conversely, if another value is "customer service," it can include tasks that prompt participants to develop procedures that boost positive customer relations.

The Big Picture is another team building activity that can help reinforce corporate values and Culture.

This activity fosters collaboration among employees, who work together towards a shared objective by creating a giant work of art. Furthermore, companies can customize the artwork to align with their values and objectives.

Through participating in The Big Picture, employees will see how their individual contributions can positively impact the final result of "the big picture".

Indeed, a Corporate Culture that reflects the goals and values of a Company is the cornerstone of a successful organisation.

Get in touch to book a program centred on Corporate Culture. Find out how Catalyst's team-building activities can help to explore and reinforce corporate goals and values while encouraging networking and team bonding.