Why Research Culture?

As I’ve been touting myself about, I get the occasional objection. And probably the most common is: “I get employer brand, I understand employee engagement but why do you bang on about researching culture too?”

I’m a big believer in the interconnectedness of all things, and I think brand, engagement and culture are all intertwined. Intertwined to such a degree that it took my first eight blog posts to pick my way through it. (Maybe I should go back on that and get it down to one…)

Now, certainly, when looking at employer brand or employee engagement, there’s really only so many types of engaging experiences that you can have with an employer – and plenty of people have produced lists of those: Achievers and David Zinger and Best Companies. So, what I’m looking for as a researcher is two things:

1.       The combination of those engaging experiences that exist at that employer.
But there’s a finite number of combinations. And if you’re looking for x things, there’s x! combinations, and if there’s y employers in the world x! << y.
Or to put it another way, your employer ain’t so unique after all. It’s not so complex and interconnected. But it is, if you look also at:
2.       Culture.
The way you do things. Your values made real. The decisions your people make. That particular way that you operate as an organisation, and bring those engaging experiences to life.
That’s where it does get different and where your employer – and the experience you promise your employees and candidates - becomes truly, actually unique.
I’m not going to pretend that this is new. Every piece of employer comms that you’ve ever said “It’s good, but it’s not right for us/them” – that was a cultural judgement. But increasingly, people buy your products because of your culture. They choose hospitals or schools because of culture. Candidates and employees choose you based on culture. And that’s why good insight into the culture your employees experience, and how it can be improved, is so important.