How does the culture of an organization influence human resource practices of an organization?

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

HR Management & Compliance
Influencing the Organizational Culture
Organizational Culture and HR Practices
Culture and Management Style
Styles of Management in an Organization
Meritocratic
Leadership
References
How does organizational culture influence HR?
How does the culture of an organization influence?
How does culture affect human resource management practices in different countries?
How does organizational culture influence individuals and organizations?

HR Management & Compliance

Organizational culture is formed by a wide range of things, including the industry, employees’ average age (or generation), employees’ skill level, and the stage of life most employees are in, just to name a few. But there are ways that organizational culture can be both indirectly and directly influenced by the organization, including the HR team. Let’s outline some of them.

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Influencing the Organizational Culture

Here are a few ways HR can have an impact on organizational culture:

Benefits on offer can impact culture much more directly than some may realize. For example, providing a generous parental leave package will go a long way toward creating a culture that is supportive of parents. Or, providing a flexible workday or remote work option can influence how the organization judges performance, encouraging judgment based on outcomes, not hours. These are just a couple examples of how benefit packages can influence culture.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) in place make a big difference in how employees work and how they’re judged, which, in turn, impacts how they interact with one another. HR can have a direct impact on KPIs through training and influence on the supervisory staff.
How much training is on offer and how it is communicated will directly impact whether an organization is viewed as being friendly to employee development. HR is often either directly or indirectly responsible for creating onboarding and training programs, so this is an area where HR professionals can have an impact.
The type of training on offer also matters. Providing things like inclusivity training, empathy training, and training on listening skills sends a clear message about the types of skills the employer values, for example. (Of course, the same is true for other types of training.)
Pay, particularly incentive schemes and bonus structures, can have an impact on employee behavior and motivation levels, which directly impacts the culture. HR teams can greatly influence pay through discussions with organizational leadership about market norms and the like and with the creation of pay grades or bands throughout the organization.
Recruiting for soft skills also makes a difference. Beyond recruitment that looks solely at the required skills for a job, recruiting that looks at an employee’s personality and so-called “soft skills” can have a major impact on culture. It can influence which people are brought onboard, and HR can have a major influence in ensuring the final candidate selection includes people who seem to be a good fit with the culture that exists or with the culture the organization is trying to cultivate.
Recruiting in a way that emphasizes cultural fit can also be an option. This can be accomplished through how the interview is conducted, the types of questions that are asked, and the emphasis put on that fit.
HR has the opportunity to live the organizational culture it’s trying to promote. Whenever the culture is purposefully created to be in alignment with the organization’s vision, the HR team has an opportunity to live out those values and vision and serve as an example.
HR policies, like business-ethical policies and policies regarding antidiscrimination, antiharassment, and antibullying (and the consistent implementation and enforcement of said policies), can set the tone for what the organization stands for.
Communication of the organization’s vision and objectives matters, too.

As you see here, there are a lot of ways the HR team can have a big impact on how the organizational culture evolves. While the employees themselves will obviously make a huge difference, there are both subtle and overt ways to steer the direction.

HR does have an important role of play in Organisational Culture, as it is the people who work for the orgnisation, who embrace and develop a particular culture within the orgnisation, any desired change to the culture of the organisation has be made through the people and by the people.

Organizational Culture and HR Practices

Basic HRM practices such as recruitment, selection, training, etc. affect the performance and stability of an organisation. Thus these practices have the ability to influence employee behaviour and create values that develop organisational culture. Since the behaviour change referes to how one acts or conducts oneself, if HR practices could positively affect the behaviour, developing positive thinking about Organisational initiatives towards the employees can help in creating value for the strategies and would result in positive results for the business.

Cultural values are part of the external factors that affect HR practices. Number of cultural values influence employee behaviour. In organisational cultures where employee involvement is common it is more likely to have higher employees satisfaction and motivation than the ones that do not favour employee involvement. However, there might be various reasons why employees do not want to contribute or speak out. Some employees might see this as an unnecessary risk, while others might simply have personal reasons (e.g. being shy or not getting along well with the management).

HR provides the organisation with effective means of facilitating an organisational culture, HR practices like on-going training, creating continuous communication channels, involving employees, establishing clear goals, creating a fair reward system, developing employees and flattening the organisational structures are all ways through which desired organisational culture could be promoted.

Culture and Management Style

HR could help develop strategies that could serve as a link between Management Style and the business strategy whilst employee's wellbeing and performance is maintained. HR should develop practices that aids in forming co-ordination between management styles and business strategy. A Delegative Management Style with business strategy that has the focus on quality improvement through knowledge sharing, in this case HR practices shall focus on Employee Development through Creation of Organisational culture where there is ease of sharing information, trust in knowledge sharing, Learning Opportunities.

Arguably the attitude of senior management is crucial for facilitating organisational culture because senior managers play an important part in shaping cultural values. After all, the style of management is likely to reflect on organisational culture. For Instance if the Management portrays itself as being flexible in daily business operation, flexibility could include lack of timing constraint for employees, focus on tasks rather than designation, this could well form an organisational culture where people might come late and go home late, Jobs could get mixed, as one person might be having multiple tasks not directly related to the job he/she was hired for.

Styles of Management in an Organization

Kabanoff (1991) identifies four styles of management:

Collegial

Resources and rewards are evenly distributed. Since the Management Control over the employees is limited, there is employee empowerment; Individual responsibility is the basis of organisational performance. Organisational success depends on commitment an employee has with the job and the business, this is key ingredient and shared values that help create a unity of direction and focus on part of the employees.

Meritocratic

Employees are concerned about productivity and cohesion. The management focus is on performance. Appointments are made and responsibilities are assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or examinations for example Civil Service Exams.

Elite

In such Management Style Organisational hierarchy is highly developed. Power, resources and rewards are concentrated at the top levels of the hierarchy.

Leadership

This style of management has a lot in common with the elite style of management, but instead of a faction of leaders on the top level, it has leaders at various levels of the hierarchy (e.g. the army).

Organizational Size is also a very important factor. In the case of facilitating organisational culture, size does matter. Complex structures and management styles make it difficult for Larger organisations to facilitate culture than the small ones. Size is related to level of resources. Large organisations are more likely to cope with internal and external challenges faster than small ones because larger organisations have better resources. In addition, large organisations tend to have a more solid hierarchy and a complex workforce, this can sometimes be a problem when departments, groups, and individuals have their own interpretation of what needs to be done.

References

Weber, Y. (1996) Corporate cultural fir and performance in mergers and acquisitions. Human Relations, 4(9), pp.1191-202

Kabanoff, B. (1991) Equity, equality, power and conflict. Academy of Management Review, 16, pp. 416-441

How does organizational culture influence HR?

An organizational culture can also influence the recruitment and selection activities of an or- ganization. This makes sense because good behavior is driven by ethical values. An organization can guide the conduct of its employees by embedding ethical values in its culture.

How does the culture of an organization influence?

Organizational culture affects all aspects of your business, from punctuality and tone to contract terms and employee benefits. When workplace culture aligns with your employees, they're more likely to feel more comfortable, supported, and valued.

How does culture affect human resource management practices in different countries?

The cultural differences in organization have impacted various HR practices. It has also led to ineffective communication, conflicts and confusion among HR and other employees.

How does organizational culture influence individuals and organizations?

The results of the study indicate that organizational culture mainly impacts motivation, promotes individual learning, affects communication, and improves organizational values, group decision making and solving conflicts.