PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS

Recruitment & Retention

Published April 2007

Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

 

  Jeffrey M. Saltzman

Across nearly every industry, competition to attract the best and brightest has intensified, with the global market creating even more opportunities for organizations and job seekers. Attracting the key talent you need is half the battle, but getting your employees motivated and fully engaged in organizational success is just as critical.

Several industry studies reveal engagement begins to decline in as little as six months after employees are hired, and at the two-year mark, many employees begin to consider going elsewhere, further raising the stakes when competing for talent. To differentiate themselves from their competitors, companies need to leverage their secret weapon: corporate culture.

By doing so, you can take advantage of what might be your biggest and potentially most underused asset when recruiting and retaining a high-performing workforce.

How important is organizational culture? Considering it has been demonstrated to affect outcomes as diverse as employee morale, performance, absenteeism, safety, recruiting, retention, quality of products or services, customer satisfaction and profits, a well-defined organizational culture can be the ultimate contributor to a high-performing and highly engaged workforce.

By creating an environment in which people are valued, developed and rewarded, organizations gain a significant competitive advantage and can begin to build a stronger, more loyal and more productive workforce.

Know Thyself

No matter whether they have actively chosen to create one, every organization has a cultural identity. To use it as a competitive advantage, organizations should cultivate an environment that defines expectations for employees. In addition, companies consistently should deliver messages about how employees are expected to contribute to the culture and how their contributions help support the achievement of organizational goals.

Crafting the right messages to help internal and external constituents understand the organization's culture is one of the first steps to use corporate culture as a competitive advantage. Organizations that clearly define themselves and what they expect from those inside the organization are the ones that excel in using corporate culture to their advantage.

Pitney Bowes, providers of the world's largest suite of mailstream services, recognizes committed, engaged employees are critical for business success. The company has made enormous strides toward defining the organization as a great place to work.

Beyond branding and touting that as its internal mantra, the company supports this message by learning what resonates with its employees and delivering on those expectations. Incorporating engagement as part of its strategic architecture, Pitney Bowes relies on engagement surveys to tap into the pulse of issues and concerns of its employees worldwide.

When the company learned the expectations of reward and recognition programs, as well as employee desires for additional opportunities for career development, were not being met, it instituted various initiatives. This illustrated that Pitney Bowes heard what employees wanted and actually delivered on their expectations.