What is company culture?

Photo by Campaign Creators

You may have heard that large global companies such as Meta, Google, and Microsoft often pride themselves on being among the best organizations for which to work. You may also have heard disgruntled employees of other organizations talking about toxic work environments. These are examples of company culture. So, what is company culture and how does this affect you as an intern?

Defining company culture

According to Glassdoor.com, company culture is determined by an organization’s values and how management and employees interact with each other, staff behavior, and how it feels to work in the company as in the example above. This is essentially the personality of a company. Company culture can be described as connected, nurturing, autonomous, motivating, happy, progressive, flexible, agile, collaborative, fast-paced, inclusive, and passionate.

Identifiers of company culture

Company culture can be determined by numerous factors, including:

Dress code - are employees expected to adhere to strict dress code policies that include full suits and business dresses, or is it more laid back and casual? This helps set the tone of how the company and employees are expected to behave. It also determines how the employees approach their work and duties and what perception external people, such as clients, can have about the company. For example, most creative entities, such as advertising agencies, like to be relaxed and free, hence the dress code is usually casual for the designers to promote their creativity.

The dress code established by your organization, be it formal or casual, determines your company culture. Photo by Dane Deaner.

Work hours - are employees of your organization expected to clock in every day at 8 am and clock out at 5 pm, or are you only expected to finish your tasks within the deadline with no specific working hours dictated? The time at which work is done thus determines a company’s personality.

Flexibility - this is determined by how easily the company you work for adapts to change in their environment/ circumstances. For example, at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, flexible companies could adjust to the new ‘normal’ by having workers work from home, rather than the office. More inflexible ones had to shut down their operations.

Communication style - this means how people in the organization speak to each other, their clients, and other parties. For example, how a junior employee is expected to address their manager or an executive staff member may be casual and on a first-name basis or extremely formal, using titles such as Sir or Madam.

Companies that are inflexible find it difficult to adapt to change. Photo by Brett Jordan

Employee benefits - another way you can tell what sort of culture your company has is in the employee benefits. This is in the perks that employees get other than their salaries, including paid time off, medical/dental insurance, retirement funds, employee retreats, etc. for example, some organizations value families and offer their employees extended paid maternity leave of 6 months as well as provide an onsite daycare center for their children once they come back from leave.

How can you tell what type of culture your organization has?

1. Do research - find out how the company describes itself. You can figure this out through its values, beliefs, mission, and vision, which would be spelled out on its website. These will help you identify what type of culture the organization has or is trying to cultivate. For example, A company that says it values technology and innovation is probably a very tech-savvy organization and will require you to be knowledgeable about the latest tech in that field.

2. Ask around - find out what employees say about the company and how they describe it. You may get a very different perspective of how things are if you take the initiative and speak to people within the organization. You may find these people through your connections on LinkedIn or other social media platforms or you may be introduced to them in person by people you know. You may simply say that you are interested in applying for a job at that organization and then ask them how it is to work there. Depending on who you talk to, they may tell you positive or negative things.

You may also use websites such as Glassdoor to find out what current and past employees have to say about that organization.

3. Find out yourself - no one will be the best judge of character for an organization you intend to work for other than yourself. You may want to experience the culture by taking an internship with the organization or doing volunteer work during holidays or in your free time. This way, you will see for yourself all the positive and negative things that happen at the company and eventually establish whether you would still want to work there.

Conclusion

As you start your career through this internship, find out what sort of culture your organization has. This will help you understand your role better as well as the goals of the company. It will also be easier to assimilate and find your footing in the corporate world as you look to find full-time employment later on.