How to Embed Culture After Organisational Change

After your company has gone through an organisational change, it’s important that you think carefully about how the culture might be affected and what you might need to address to achieve the desired attitudes and behaviours your new organisation needs to succeed. If you don’t actively identify and develop your culture, then it will develop on its own and may not end up reflecting the values that you envisioned for your company. So how do you embed culture into a company after it has been through change?

In the context of organisations, culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in an organisation and can have a dramatic affect on whether an organisation is successful or not.  It’s therefore very important to articulate the desired culture to your employees clearly to provide them with a guide on how you expect them to behave and to provide them with a bit of direction. Don’t preach it to them and expect them to immediately take it on board, engage them in the creation of it if you can by collectively identifying what behaviours are acceptable and how they deliver great results. By engaging your team from the start you will achieve greater buy in and commitment in the long term. However, it’s all very well identifying the culture, it’s critically important you embed it through walking your talk again and again, rewarding those that follow and addressing those that don’t.  

What many leaders forget is that the rest of the organisation looks to them to set the scene. Too often leaders expect everyone else to behave accordingly but do as they please. Fundamental to successful culture change is that you lead by example; the values you live will rub off on others. If your employees respect you, they will learn from the way you talk, behave and work, and will copy this to an extent. Show them you believe in the new culture yourself, or else it will appear inauthentic to your employees and they will view it as insignificant as you do.

You should, first and foremost, be focusing on entrenching the new culture and values in your current staff, but if you are taking on new staff, make sure they understand the expectations of your company. If you don’t think they’ll be able to follow and demonstrate the values associated with the new culture, then look for someone who will. 

If certain employees are quick to take on and display the values and behaviours of the new culture, then reward them for it. This will encourage them to repeat the behaviour they have already adopted and will also give their colleagues an idea of who they should be looking to for an example and an incentive to follow their lead.

So, if you want to effectively and thoroughly embed a new culture in an organisation, it’s important for the directors and management team to lead by example and encourage everyone else to follow suit. If you need any more advice on embedding culture after organisational change, please get in touch with us by email on penny@pennystrutton.co.uk or call us on 0115 8800 098.