I’ve been talking quite a lot about culture and culture branding recently. I’m working on a book at the moment on the topic. Whenever I start the conversation I make a statement that always creates plenty of discussion: “There is no such thing as a bad culture.” This always leads to plenty of tales about bad companies, bad experiences, bad bosses and the like, all described as bad cultures. Toxic cultures. This is of course nonsense, The culture is toxic to you, but is it toxic to everyone?
My thinking is that there is no such thing as bad culture, only bad culture fit. For 12 years I worked for a company that was very much a command structure, with plenty of orders coming from above, and little room for discussion or deviation. If you know me now, then this will come as a bit of a surprise, but at the time I thrived in this culture.
There is no bad culture, only bad culture fit. It is the big recruiting challenge, and on the whole we are not very good at this. Culture fit starts with talent attraction, and reaching the people who fit. That means a concentration on honest culture branding, and sourcing to culture. Culture fit first, skills fit second. This begins with properly understanding what your culture is first, and making this visible to the world.
At the world cafe sessions at #ATCSM, I led a discussion on Glassdoor and other review sites, and their part in how you are perceived as an employer. Employer and culture review site Glassdoor are expanding rapidly across the globe, as a result of the take up of their Facebook app. To get access to the useful features on the site, users have to leave a basic review of their employer as a minimum. When you look at any review site, the people who take time to add reviews are usually those with extreme experiences, those who love or hate a brand. The real experience though is usually somewhere in the middle.What is inevitable going in to 2013 is that Glassdoor (and the like) are going to grow in terms of reviews and users. When we travel, we rarely book a hotel without first looking at TripAdvisor. When we buy anything on e-bay we place great stock on previous customers comments. Recruiting is not going to be any different. My view is that all companies should not leave reviews to chance and the extremes, but encourage all staff to complete a review on Glassdoor. The resistance to this is that the down side of the business culture is made public, but is that really a bad thing?
You can put the Glassdoor widget, and links, on all of your web and social places, to give outsiders an honest picture of your organisation. This means outsiders can decide if the pro’s outweigh the cons or not, and make the right informed choice about applying to join you. It is a good thing that plenty of people are going to choose not to apply because you don’t look right for them. That saves you accidentally hiring people who don’t fit. Give people the opportunity to choose, based on honest employee feedback, and not the marketing BS promoted by the digital mafia in organisations.
Bill
As per your last paragraph. Be transparent, be honest, be authentic and show it.
No such thing as a bad culture? Complete rubbish, only an uneducated, institutionalised & inexperienced mind would come out with such a statement. Cultures can be broken down into sub-cultures and even down to an individual subjective level, but to say there is no such thing as a bad culture beggars belief. I guess the culture in Anglo & other Irish banks during the banking crisis and now wasnt toxic? Doesn’t take a genius to answer that.
Toxic for the economy but toxic for the employees? plenty of people did, and still do love working for these banks. It might be a terrible culture to you, but is it to them? Don’t take the intellectual high ground, think about it.
I agree whole heartedly Bill. I started RoundPegg a few years back to help companies figure out what their culture is, how to hire into it with much more favorable outcomes, and how to galvanize employees around the culture day to day. Measure, manage, and monitor. Creating transparency around your culture means that individuals who are likely to fit will be drawn to your company while those who wouldn’t work out anyway will self select out of the process. Good work. Good article.
There is no such thing as bad culture makes some good points! I hope you think more about the benefits of the discussed reviews. it comes across as you think transparency for its own sake is must….a wonderful idea…but I wonder if the companies will buy it?
Great post Bill, and completely agree there is no such thing as a bad culture… simply that individuals may not fit within that culture.
There is a general consensus that once an employee has the minimum skill set required for a job, the key to whether they will be successful is largely determined by their soft skills; how they think, work and interact, and how they fit within the culture of the organisation they join.
At ViewsOnYou – http://www.viewsonyou.com – we’re helping professionals match their own character with the employee culture of the organisations they are interested in, and at the same time helping employers find candidates who fit their benchmark or team culture.