Corporate culture matters. It affects your bottom line. It can be the reason you lose top employees. It can motivate and empower employees. It can either attract or repel potential employees.
Recently Bill Barnett, former lead of the Strategy Practice at McKinsey & Company, wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review Blog called When Choosing a Job, Culture Matters.
In the piece Barnett chronicles the story of Sean, a person who received a job offer at a Fortune 500 company to be its chief administrative officer. Sean would be the first person to occupy such a position within the company.
Sean turned down the offer after concluding that the role wouldn’t be a good fit in the performance-driven environment where everyone measured success by a person’s direct contribution to the bottom line.
In other words, the corporate culture wasn’t right for that specific position. It wasn’t a sure thing that Sean’s peers would have respect for him given his responsibilities.
Barnett uses Sean’s story to teach job seekers about why corporate culture matters when choosing a job. But we’re going to focus on the flip side: What can business owners learn from Sean’s experience?
The Lesson For Business Owners
Again, corporate culture matters – even when dealing with people that aren’t employees.
Job seekers are considering everything about a company before accepting an offer. They’re not only looking for good pay and benefits, they’re looking for employees that enjoy working there, room for growth within the company—and yes, a positive corporate culture.
Those on the job hunt are also being advised to consider everything. Barnett’s article is proof of that.
If you’re not convinced yet, let’s take a look at some data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Almost 2.1 million people quit their jobs in February of 2012, continuing an upward trend that lasted the previous five months. Preliminary numbers indicate that March will be even higher.
What’s the relevance of this statistic? Historically, a higher volume of people quitting their jobs generally indicates that the economy is doing better.
“It turns out that a healthy economy encourages more people to quit their jobs in search of something better,” Nevada’s Workforce Connections notes. This is generally because people feel more confident in the job prospects.
For business owners, this means that current employees might be inclined to leave in the coming months if, for instance, they don’t like the corporate culture. This leaves the door open for new hires, but job seekers are also going to be looking for a positive corporate culture. As we just discussed, these job seekers should be more confident in their prospects and could turn you down if your culture doesn’t meet their standard.
If you are beginning to see a higher turnover rate among your employees or are hearing rumblings that people might be looking for new jobs, it probably is time to take a look at your corporate culture and make sure that the environment is positive and provides upward mobility. Don’t ignore the impact your corporate culture and environment can have on employee retention and hiring.
Recap
Job seekers today are considering corporate culture just as much as pay and benefits.
Career counselors are also advising people to find out more about a company’s culture before accepting a job offer.
Corporate culture is the reason Sean turned down what otherwise was a great offer for a Fortune 500 company.
Corporate culture matters when hiring new employees.
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