Well, I have just gotten a call from a prospective employer this morning and I cannot close a blink of an eye because i am cracking my head trying to think what the heck am i going to tell them why i left my old working place ?
Here i am in the middle of the night trying to get some info on nice things to say about my ex-employer when EVERYTHING was not so nice. In fact it was such a sour experience that it turned into a phobia. While i was searching for some clue on what i could say, i have stumbled upon this article on corporate communications vs organisational culture. It is ironic because corporate communications is often the person holding together the organisational culture should be the last person on earth to advocate negative behaviour. Sigh.. sometimes i wonder if my ex-boss knows what the heck she is doing... and i thought i didn't know what i was doing..
Well, based on that experience, i have officially declared resentment to people with a certain set of background and i know what kind of behaviour to expect out of them since it has been demonstrated to me over and over again... I guess it is the frustration that had me build this wall inside of me.
Anyway, for the sake of me reading in the future of my current thoughts about my work experiences, i have pasted below the article :
CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS VS ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Should corporate communications managers play a role in creating and sustaining a corporate culture within their organizations?
It’s a topic of frequent and often heated debate that ranges from: “No, because corporate culture is something that evolves and should not be managed”, to: “Yes, because corporate culture can be a valuable asset in communicating vision and values internally and externally.”
A tangent to the debate is that corporate culture should be handled by human resources managers, not corporate communications, but that’s a topic on its own. This column will address only the role of corporate communications managers in corporate culture.
The first task is to define corporate culture. In essence it is how an organization gets things done, sometimes referred to as “the way we do things around here”. It can be good, bad or indifferent, and every organization has one whether it is obvious or not.
In some organizations corporate culture simply evolves without any proactive efforts by management, in others emphasis is placed on vision and values, which, in fact, are the basis of corporate culture. Not many organizations have a specific strategy to develop and strengthen their corporate culture – and they probably don’t need one.
What is important is to create the structure within which a healthy corporate culture can grow and be sustained, and that calls for a variety of skills and experience within the organization. But the corporate communications manager ties it all together.
Paul Sanchez ABC, APR, worldwide partner for Mercer Human Resource Consulting based in London, England, believes there are four building blocks of corporate culture all of which flow from an organization’s mission and purpose:
Strategy – how resources will be applied to achieve the organization’s mission and purpose.
Structure – how the organization will arrange itself to implement its strategy.
People – the employees who will implement the strategy.
Process – how the strategy is implemented.
Based on this model it is clear that different teams within an organization are responsible for specific building blocks. The corporate communications manager’s role is to ensure a continuous flow of information across all levels of the organization to ensure understanding and acceptance of the basic premise underlying the corporate culture. For that reason, he or she needs to be involved at each stage of the process to ensure that actions and intentions are unambiguous and can be communicated clearly.
For example, are there any aspects of the organization’s business strategy that can be misinterpreted by current or future employees to mean that certain unethical practices are condoned? If so, it’s up to the corporate communications manager to point them out and develop messaging that leaves no doubt that unethical behaviour will not be tolerated.
Similarly, in the structure of the organization, it may be deemed necessary by management to have off-shore subsidiaries, perhaps even in a tax haven. How does that impact the corporate culture; does it create suspicion and promote secrecy? Corporate communicators need to address an issue like this in a way that protects the organization’s reputation and maintains credibility by being as transparent as possible.
Communications should be aimed at promoting harmony within the organization. Typically, harmony contributes to a positive corporate culture while disharmony undermines positive corporate culture.
The values on which a positive culture can be built include:
Trust
Accountability
Transparency
Empowerment
Fairness
Respect
Sincerity
Yes, cynics will say they are all nothing but clichés, which is true unless there is substance behind them, and here again it’s up to the corporate communications manager to ensure that they are substantial. He or she must bring each of these values to life for employees by providing ongoing examples of how they are being promoted and achieved within the organization. Of course this also means that the corporate communications manager must ensure that the organization is living up to the values by, in effect, becoming the organization’s corporate conscience.
The tools for communicating will obviously vary depending on the size and resources of the organization, but can include e-mail, newsletters, town halls, informal gatherings etc. One of the most valuable ways of promoting corporate culture is to encourage senior manager to do “walk-abouts” as often as possible. A couple of minutes of informal chat at an employee’s desk indicates interest by managers and helps sustain positive corporate culture.
The benefits of a strong corporate culture are fairly obvious; it promotes and encourages good work and makes the organization an attractive employer. But it has other benefits as well, not least of all a cushioning effect when bad news has to be announced, such as lay-offs. It is also far more likely that employees in an organization with a healthy corporate culture will pull together and be willing to sacrifice if necessary when business conditions turn bad.
A word of caution to end with: don’t confuse climate with culture. The climate within an organization is usually transient and can be influenced by factors such as the resignation of a popular senior manager, the loss of a major customer or a general downturn in the business environment. Climate needs to address by corporate communicators, but it is not as ingrained and permanent as the corporate culture.
Here isthe link to the article http://www.cfpr.ca/corporate_comm.html
