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.

By committing to cultivate a great place to work, Pitney Bowes leverages its 34,000 employees as brand ambassadors, letting potential job seekers know that what goes on inside the company walls is indeed what they say it is.

That clearly defined message offers the company a significant competitive advantage by setting it apart from competitors that either lack a clear-cut employment brand or obfuscate recruitment messages. After all, doesn't everyone want to be employed by a company known as a great place to work?

Cultures that Enable Performance will Deliver Improved Results

Another characteristic of cultural strength is an organization that enables employees to deliver on expectations. First, by having the employees know what the company stands for and what the performance expectations are, and then providing employees the resources they need to deliver on those expectations, individuals directly can affect the organization's performance, making an impact on its brand and top-line revenue growth.

Organizations that value strong cultural differentiation not only communicate what they expect in terms of performance but also provide employees with the tools, resources and training that enable them to demonstrate the company's core message. Additionally, a culture that supports ongoing, regular feedback and fosters open communication delivers greater satisfaction to employees because they understand what is expected of them and are given the right resources to achieve it.

Another aspect of effective cultural branding is providing employees with a sense of future, as well as the long-term benefits of remaining with the organization. Employees want to take pride in their achievements. They want to contribute to organizational success, knowing there are development opportunities and rewards available to them. An integral part of delivering on future needs is creating a highly engaged workforce.

Greenwich, Conn.-based United Rentals, the country's largest equipment rental company, wanted to drive employee commitment and performance, as well as reduce turnover. With distributed branch offices across the United States, it was important that employees recognize a big company was standing behind them, listening to their issues and focusing on ways to improve their work environment. Through engagement surveys, United Rentals now has an accurate snapshot of workforce concerns and also has gained an understanding of what drives employee turnover.

Learning the most important drivers of engagement are management effectiveness, involvement and career opportunities, United Rentals has made great strides to improve communication with its workforce and promote internal career opportunities. By providing its workforce with development programs and career advancement, employees understand there are career paths, as well as a prospective future, at the company.

It's clear the majority of employees who come to work for an organization do so with the expectation and desire to do a high-quality job. It's also clear that the situations they face within an organization often will prevent them from doing so. One of the organization's goals should be to provide and develop the cultural characteristics that allow individuals (hence, the organization) to achieve its maximum potential.

Attracting the Best and Brightest

To maximize the potential of people within the organization and to attract the best and brightest, a well-defined message has to start internally before being projected to the outside. According to a recent industry survey, the most satisfied people in the organization are the ones most recently hired.

Painting a realistic picture of what it's like behind the company walls can sustain the initial enthusiasm new hires bring to a job. It also helps avoid a sense of unmet expectations and ultimately reduce turnover.

If people are presented with a realistic view of the corporate culture, they will have a better understanding of what it's like to work there and whether it is a place that mirrors their own needs.

Building a culture that outperforms the competition starts by attracting and recruiting the right people. Then, organizations need to recognize talent potential and select the right people to sustain longevity and build a high-performing workforce.

At Golden Corral restaurants, management recognizes hiring the right people results in increased profits and greater employee satisfaction. Several years ago, the company realized its turnover numbers were undesirably high, which negatively affected business results. The company also noticed restaurants with reduced turnover performed better.

Thus, Golden Corral set its sights on improving its ability to hire people whose attitude and performance would better reflect the corporate culture. Using a screening solution to identify talent, Golden Corral reduced its recruiting time and gained immediate insight into the desirability of further pursuing a candidate.

Likewise, American City Business Journals Inc. also implemented a selection tool in its recruiting process. This tool equipped managers to make smarter hiring decisions. By identifying talent who will best mesh with its corporate culture, the solution helped the company find more people similar to its very best, building a more cohesive workforce.

People are All the Same, and They are All Different

Although the fundamental characteristics of what people want from a job are extremely similar regardless of sex, generation, ethnicity or geography, it is also clear that people's skills, abilities and other personal characteristics are very different. A focus on diversity also is part of the cultural advantage — a winning corporate culture combines all employees' positive attributes to build a high-performance workforce that drives the company's goals and mission.

A stronger approach to diversity also yields more consistent organizational performance, a finding some might find to be counterintuitive. By having a wide array of strengths, skills and cultural experiences, organizations can take advantage of different points of view, more readily adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and relate to a wider customer base across global markets.

Because diversity is a good thing, it also means companies need to understand that different issues and concerns matter at different points during an employee's career. If an employer has put forth the effort to hire only the very best, the next logical step is to ensure these employees are engaged in the success of the organization.

Life cycle surveys at various points during employee tenure deliver insight into perceptions and attitudes. For instance, socialization or new-hire surveys — often done at the six-month mark — let employers know whether an employee's experience delivers on expectations. These surveys also provide honest information about the actual culture and how it is perceived.

Through exit interviews, companies can gain an understanding of why employees leave, which can give employers an opportunity to address relevant issues before a corporate exodus. Because people are sometimes wary of providing candid responses, a neutral third-party partner often can deliver more honest feedback.

A well-developed corporate culture improves morale, performance and engagement, and it offers significant competitive strength when competing for customers, as well as talent.

Employee loyalty to companies has changed, and although today's employees do not necessarily expect a job for life, they do expect to feel valued, developed and rewarded for the contributions they make toward a company's success.

By understanding and meeting the needs of their people and ensuring they have the right tools to make it happen, organizations can reap the sizeable rewards of a strong positive culture and cultivate a high-performing workforce.
Jeffrey M. Saltzman is the global survey practice leader-New York for Kenexa, a talent acquisition and retention solutions provider. A seasoned industry expert, Saltzman has conducted employee research in organizational effectiveness, recruitment and retention, mergers and acquisitions, diversity and inclusion, downsizing, communications, employee morale and cultural differences.

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