Analysing culture Strategic HR
Ultimately culture is important
create between themselves anyway
whether organisations are intentional
about it or not.
“As far as we know even our nearest
neighbours chimpanzees don’t have
cultures,” he says. “But because human
beings are gifted with elaborate
language systems and consciousness we
developed symbolic edifices that are
profoundly cultural. That’s why it
matters, because organisations are all
about social relationships.”
Assessing and monitoring
This “anthropological dimension”
means, however, that when boards and
shareholders inevitably turn to HR
asking (hopefully not shouting) for a
measure around culture HR needs to
push back. While this is an opportunity
for HR to bring a potentially
organisation-critical area to the
(board) table, it must be gone
about the right way.
“I think we have to educate
shareholders and boards. If
they’re serious about this
financial services is’ they will have
a view,” he says, adding: “To an
external stakeholder or investor or
regulator it’s so important an
organisation can articulate what it
values about its workforce. Culture
is a really nice way – it’s almost a
theme – in which we can talk about
the important people issues that occur
in organisations.”
Though he is deeply suspicious of
attempts to measure it in purely black
and white quantifiable terms, Jones is
similarly convinced of the importance
of culture to organisational success.
“Culture is not a new concern; it’s
come back again,” he says, asserting
that this is with good reason and
pointing to that old adage ‘culture eats
strategy for breakfast’.
“We started to think we could solve
all the fundamental problems with
improving HR systems… Then the
solution was to get a new
strategy… Well we soon
discovered that a new strategy
doesn’t mean it’ll be executed.”
trying to change the way
people behave?’ They
say ‘yes’. So why do we
need to talk about culture?”
“Culture is not necessarily the right
way to express it,” agrees Philippa
Foster Back, director of the Institute of
Business Ethics (IBE). “Because you
can have many different cultures in an
organisation, and quite rightly so.
Hopefully the same values will be
embedded but the way it plays out will
be slightly different. I think it’s much
better to talk about behaviours because
those are individual and it’s the
combination that gives you the culture.
“It’s a subject you need to be granular
about,” she continues. “So you need to
know: what are people actually doing?
And what example are they setting?”
Edward Houghton, head of research
at the CIPD, concedes that the
literature on culture can be quite
confusing and contradictory, with a
dearth of evidence around what works.
“In the development of our Profession
Map we spent a lot of time trying to
navigate what are some quite complex
and fraught areas of academic thinking
about organisational culture,” he says.
“Quality research conducted within
live organisations is lacking because it’s
sometimes hard to get into businesses
to do this type of research; you have to
get into every corner because it has to
be comprehensive.”
But that’s not to say the concept has
no value. Far from it. “Behaviour is a
fundamental part of what we mean by
culture, but it’s not the only part. That’s
why I think culture has gained a lot of
traction within the governance space
because it’s not just about behaviours
but values and systems that govern
organisations,” Houghton says,
describing culture as “the glue that
sticks it all together”.
The fact that everyone – from the
person on the street to those in the
boardroom – knows what is meant by
‘organisational culture’, and exactly
what different cultures feel like, is no
small signifier of the concept’s value,
he adds.
“If you say to someone on the street
‘describe what you think the culture of
Culture is
a really
nice way
we can
talk about
important
people
issues
because it’s “anthropological”, or rather
a uniquely human “species concept”,
says Jones – so something humans will
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These came into force in January 2019, with most reporting generally beginning in 2020
(apart from CEO pay ratios). They require companies with more than 250 UK employees to:
Include a statement in the directors’ report summarising action taken to:
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making decisions likely to affect their interests.
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