Corporate culture has become more important than strategy in recent years due to changes in the labor market, different generations, remote work, and ultimately the increasing number of foreign workers. It is now up to HR professionals to work on corporate culture so that changes do not come at a high cost to entrepreneurs.
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To raise awareness that culture is a point of differentiation and strongly influences business, Lider gathered HR professionals and employees from various companies and organizations today at Wespa Spaces in Zagreb to exchange their experiences and learn the importance of clarity in company culture as well as the importance of defined levers of change and desired behaviors. Additionally, participants learned from the concrete experiences of the educators and understood the impact of new regulations in the field of labor relations on organizational culture and preparation for the future of work.
The training itself began with an introduction of the speakers, Nina Butić Ivanković and Danijela Capan, to the participants and a presentation of Croatian culture compared to other countries.
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– Culture consists of behavior patterns within an organization. For example, when someone makes a mistake, we look for a culprit, or when someone makes a mistake, we seek a joint solution. This is the difference between good and bad culture – defined Butić Ivanković, who added that only 20 percent of organizations that undergo significant changes achieve their desired goals.
A total of 23 participants gathered at Lider’s training to exchange good and bad practices from their own experiences because, as was heard, the topic is ‘too interesting to miss’. The speakers dedicated part of the training to organizational values, which they claim should be part of the company’s identity.
– Whenever a decision needs to be made and you don’t know how, organizational values serve as our guide. The same applies to crises. No one is fully prepared for crises, and resolving them requires adherence to organizational values – said Butić Ivanković, adding that values support the mission and vision and reflect what the company values most.
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Furthermore, the speakers emphasized that these values guide employees in what is important and serve as a filter for decision-making. Additionally, organizational values should describe how individuals relate to their work. Buntić Ivanković also pointed out that culture is divided into what is visible and what is invisible, noting that the invisible part contains shared beliefs and proclaimed organizational values, while the visible parts include shared structures, processes, systems, and symbols, or patterns of common behavior.
To better determine and define values, participants were divided into groups after the ‘theoretical part’ and through practical work with people from different companies, they identified useful but also limiting beliefs, behaviors arising from those beliefs, and the consequences of those practices.
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It was a pleasant exercise at Lider’s training in Wespa Spaces where ideas were exchanged and creativity was showcased. This all-day training allowed participants to concretize the abstract concept of corporate culture and learn the mechanisms that influence its development.
– I expect that participants will leave this training with the understanding that organizational culture is not something elusive that happens to us, but that we can and should actively manage it. As Armin Trost would say, ‘don’t change the culture by changing the culture‘. Changing organizational culture requires a holistic approach; it is not enough to just put up new posters on the walls, but we must reconsider how our systems, processes, and structure support or hinder the desired organizational culture, which we demonstrated through examples. We have a quality exchange of experiences, and we hope that everyone leaves with something they can start applying in their organization as early as tomorrow – concluded Danijela Capan.
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