4: Every Corporate Culture Is Different

The Human Energy Organisation’s eGap diagnostic explores employees’ perceptions of their workplace and contrasts this with what they believe the workplace should offer. The main ‘axis’ of comparison is from a highly empowered, autonomous, creative environment at one extreme, to a more controlled, measured, efficiency-driven environment at the other.

Both of these ‘extremes’ of working environment exist, alongside every shade of variety of environment in between, and there are highly-motivated and engaged people working in every one of these environments. But a highly-motivated person moving from an empowered and autonomous environment to a highly controlled and measured environment might quickly become disengaged, and visa versa. What matters is the ‘gap’ between aspiration and environment. Where the gap is high, people are demotivated and disengaged. Where the gap is low, people are motivated and engaged.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ set of corporate behaviours that will deliver employee engagement – but there are understandable, achievable changes that can be made to any corporate culture that will dramatically improve employee engagement. What we need in order to achieve these improvements is a precise understanding of the aspects of corporate culture that are affecting levels of engagement.

In consulting with our clients, using the eGap diagnostic, we often find that the root of much disengagement is some engrained but inessential aspect of corporate culture that is simple to change, sometimes with dramatic affect. What is always the case is that beginning the process of dissecting and examining corporate culture sets off a ‘domino effect’, as small change to one aspect of corporate culture reveals a deficiency in one area and a huge opportunity in yet another.

Read more about the linkage between aspects of corporate culture in the fifth aspect of our argument: All Organisational Behaviours Connect

 

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