Many organizations don’t find defining company culture necessary. However, company culture affects the employees on an everyday basis. A poor or lack of company culture can result in a quick turnover of employees or slow down the organization’s growth. On the other hand, consistent and positive company culture can positively impact employee motivation.
Let’s take a detailed look at how company culture affects employee motivation.
Culture Impacts the Sense of Belonging
Positive company culture is built and maintained to promote employee communication and collaboration. While these terms sound as if they are only required to achieve professional growth, they dramatically affect how employees feel in the workplace.
Without a culture of communication and collaboration, employees feel shy or hesitant to ask questions. This dramatically increases their chances of making mistakes. Correction of errors also makes employees spend more time at work and put more effort into every task. But it makes employees feel secluded besides requiring them to put in long hours and unnecessary extra effort. Even talented employees can doubt themselves and their skills when they cannot get clarifications on their tasks. They may feel that they are the only ones who don’t understand the work and become more hesitant towards asking for clarification, resulting in lowered morale and motivation at work.
Culture Impacts the Sense of Security
Employees who feel isolated and unqualified for their job also become insecure about them. These feelings can lead the employees to believe that they aren’t a good fit for the company and that they will be replaced as soon as they find a replacement. Hence, they begin searching for another job so that they can quit before they can be fired.
Job insecurity is one of the worst feelings an employee can suffer from. Job insecurity also leads to employees becoming silent on experiencing bullying and harassment. Experiencing such behavior from their colleagues doesn’t just adversely affect employee motivation to stay at the organization long-term but also negatively impacts their focus while working. Their work quality reduces. The feeling that they will soon be replaced is further emphasized when this is pointed out.
On the other hand, a secure and positive company culture allows employees to feel emotionally, physically, and professionally safe.
Culture Impacts Self-Actualization Needs
Though organizations usually mistake observing their employees with a single viewpoint, employees are always more than that. Like any other human, professional achievements can be an essential aspect of self-actualization needs for any organization’s employees.
However, employees feel trapped in the workplace when a company culture doesn’t recognize its employees’ growth and improvement needs. Micromanaging, not acknowledging employees’ hard work, and shunning them from being creative are common ways negative company culture impacts employees and their motivation.
Alternatively, organizations can support the self-actualization needs of their employees by allowing them to be creative and efficient with their work. Supporting further education and training of employees can also positively contribute to employee motivation.
Employee motivation for their individual tasks plays a significant role in contributing to the organization’s growth. For all-rounded organizational development, employers must pay attention to employee motivation at all levels.
