The Employee Experience Advantage

CHAPTER 7The Cultural Environment

Out of all the employees and business leaders whom I have interviewed over the years, the vast majority of them have always told me that culture is what they care about most. Unlike the previous two environments, the cultural environment isn't the one that you can see, touch, taste, or breathe in. This is the only environment that you feel. That feeling is the pit in your stomach when you don't want to go to work or the excitement and butterflies you get from wanting to go to work. Simply put, the cultural environment is the vibe of your organization and the actions that are taken to create that vibe or feeling.

The culture of the organization determines how employees are treated, the products or services that are created, the partnerships that are established, and even how employees actually get their jobs done. What's fascinating about culture, though, is that it exists regardless of whether the organization realizes it or decides to create it. A technological environment doesn't exist without actual things that the organization deploys. A physical environment doesn't exist unless the organization creates or designates one. But the corporate culture is like air. It's around all the employees who work there even if they aren't always aware of it. This is why it's so crucial to actually create and design a culture instead of just letting it exist. So what does the cultural environment actually look like?

There are 10 attributes that organizations ...