12.1.1 The Culture of The Workplace

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The Culture of The Workplace

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The values, norms, and artifacts of an organization constitute its culture.

Like many teens growing up in the United States, I got my first two jobs in chain restaurants—six months at an ice cream parlor and three years at a pizza restaurant. The two workplaces couldn’t have been more different. The ice cream parlor had a strict behavior code, and violations were grounds for termination. Workers had to wear buttons saying how “fun” work was, but this was far from the truth. Managers snapped orders at employees and rarely socialized with them outside of the workplace. Because employee turnover was high, few people developed close friendships with coworkers. The pizza restaurant was the opposite. Workers socialized after hours, and supervisor-subordinate relationships were friendly. A sense of camaraderie permeated the restaurant, and most employees’ closest personal friends were coworkers. Employee turnover was low, and management further encouraged close friendships through outside activities, including a softball team and waterskiing parties.

In the same way that different cultures have unique traditions, each workplace possesses a distinctive set of beliefs regarding how things are done and how people should behave, known as its organizational culture (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Organizational culture influences everything from job satisfaction and organizational commitment to service quality and staff turnover (Glisson & James, 2002). An organization’s culture derives from three sources, the first of which is workplace values: beliefs people share about work performance, dedication to the organization, and coworker relationships. For example, both places I worked at in my youth stressed the values of employee excellence and productivity. But the ice cream parlor discouraged friendships between coworkers, whereas the pizza restaurant encouraged such relationships. Other examples of workplace values include beliefs regarding corporate responsibility to the environment, commitment to stakeholders (customers, employees, business partners, shareholders, etc.), and worker integrity.

Workplace values create workplace norms—guidelines governing appropriate interpersonal communication and relationships (Eisenberg & Goodall, 2004). In each organization, expectations evolve regarding the frequency and tone of communication. In some organizations, informality is the norm. For example, you might be encouraged by your supervisor to challenge his or her ideas, regardless of your place in the hierarchy. In other organizations, people are expected to strictly observe authority.

The final influence on an organization’s culture is its workplace artifacts—the objects and structures that define the organization (Schein, 1985). Workplace artifacts include everything from the physical layout of your workspace to dress codes and even motivational items such as hallway posters urging you to always perform at your best.

When you join an organization, you are socialized into its culture through formal and informal encounters with established coworkers (Miller, 1995). During my first day as a dishwasher at the ice cream parlor, for example, my trainer (another dishwasher) openly mocked the “it’s fun to work here” buttons we were all forced to wear, telling me instead, “People work here for one reason: the paycheck.” My training at the pizza restaurant was conducted by the manager. He encouraged me to stay after work and enjoy free food and drink with my coworkers—an activity he called “new employee training.”