Culture and retention in the workplace

Corporate culture remains a major part of any business's strategy for maintaining long-term growth. According to Human Resources Online, many large companies rely on a culture with a strong work ethic and discipline. Recently, Glassdoor, an online career community, studied to see which of the big businesses place culture ahead of other considerations when it comes to business. In addition, it looked to see what employees report as wanting from a company where they are working.

The results are that searching for a new job means employees put culture first. However, when it comes to actually choosing a job from the handful that have accepted them, the workers generally pick salary, location, reputation and growth opportunities over anything else.

On the company side, businesses tend to value a supportive and motivational atmosphere that is centered around teams and a space where everyone feels like a family.

How to place culture at the forefront of your business
Glassdoor, in an interview with HRE Online, reported that companies should first consider what they want from their culture before taking steps to actualize these ideas. Following that, hiring for culture becomes a major change-inducer. Human Resources should work on changing the company brand to support its new identity as a more culture-focused business. Employee engagement surveys are also a great way to see where things stand currently and where they could be headed.

"HR doesn't think about this data as a rich source of insight," said Barbara Spitzer, managing director at Towers Watson. "By cutting questions in a different way, they will indicate gaps in your culture and desired future culture. You can mine that data, figure out the gaps and prioritize and de-prioritize or eliminate."

The double-edged sword of culture
An article by Compensation force described the high retention rate of employees often associated with a great culture can have problematic issues. For example, there can be an eventual need for laying off employees. In fact, companies that focus on keeping their employees often stagnate because they don't get an influx of new ideas that come from entry level people joining the business from college, or from new leaders joining at managerial positions.

In other words, it's a good idea to build a certain amount of specificity around retention, focusing on keeping the best employees, while allowing the less motivated or engaged employees to come and go. This means that the people who stick through the hard times a company faces will be the really dedicated ones.