2-5 Describe current issues in organizational culture.
Corporate leaders increasingly are recognizing that organizational culture is a critical business issue, particularly since an organization’s culture can be a “driver” of employee productivity, engagement, and retention. What current cultural issues are managers focusing on? We’ve identified five that we think are important. Let’s take a look.
In Chapter 1, we discussed why customers are so important to organizations and managers. A customer-responsive culture can lead to more satisfied employees and customers, which in turn can affect performance results. What does a customer-responsive culture look like? Exhibit 2-6 describes five characteristics of customer-responsive cultures and offers suggestions as to what managers can do to create that type of culture.41
Creating a Customer-Responsive Culture
Characteristics of Customer-Responsive Culture | Suggestions for managers |
---|---|
Type of employee | Hire people with personalities and attitudes consistent with customer service: friendly, attentive, enthusiastic, patient, good listening skills |
Type of job environment | Design jobs so employees have as much control as possible to satisfy customer, without rigid rules and procedures |
Empowerment | Give service-contact employees the discretion to make day-to-day decision on job-related activites |
Role clarity | Reduce uncertainty about what service-contact employees can and cannot do by continual training on product knowledge, listening, and other behavioral skills |
Consistent desire to satisfy and delight customer | Clarify organization’s commitment to doing whatever it takes, even if it’s outside an employee’s normal job requirements |
Source: Robbins, Stephen P., Coulter, Mary A., Management (Subscription). 14th Ed., © 2018. Reprinted and electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY.