Why Your Organizational Culture Matters & How To Strengthen It

What people want most at work is a great work culture. In a recent global survey, almost 70% of employees and leaders say culture is more important to business success than strategy and operations.

69% of leaders credit much of their survival during the pandemic to company culture. And studies show that the companies and organizations that embraced change through the pandemic were the ones who not just survived but thrived. 

In this article, we'll define organizational culture, how to change it for the better, and the investment it takes to keep it growing.

What is organizational culture? 

We can define culture as more than just norms, rituals, and in-office happenings. It also includes how a company or organization communicates, behaves, celebrates, and coaches performance. It's shaped by attitudes, behaviors, and values and touches every single person in an organization. (Quantum Workplace)

Your internal dialogue for meetings, time off, or announcements can affect culture. How you choose to recognize good things (or not!) shapes how your people feel about their workplace. Your interest in growing your employees' expertise lets your people know how much or little you value them. 

How can you change your organizational culture?

Because culture is so impactful, it’s important to spend time on making sure it’s strong and supportive to everyone in the organization. It’s one thing to know you could improve your organizational culture. It’s quite another to actively pursue a path to improvement. 

Caring, compassion, informed leadership matters, as does the personal well-being of each team member. Working from the top down and bottom up are both proven ways to build a workplace where everyone feels heard, valued, and seen. 

Specifically with domestic violence and sexual violence organizations, you must cultivate a trauma-informed culture. And a culture that addresses your advocate’s vicarious trauma. This can negatively impact an advocate’s ability to make wise decisions, lead to stressed personal relationships, and poor physical health. All of which impact your organization’s effectiveness.

What type of investment does it take to change your organizational culture?

RAFT specializes in growing DV and DV organizational culture through no-cost virtual workshops and monthly calls. We understand shoestring budgets. And we understand the hard work you do that often leads to compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma. In order for your organization to help survivors, your staff needs to be supported well physically, mentally, and spiritual well-being. 

Our Advocate workshops focus on tools to build resilience to challenges both in work and in life. We currently offer two different workshop series on topics like boundaries, shame, decision making, and saying no.

We also host free monthly Emerging Leadership calls and monthly Executive Leadership calls. 

While there’s no financial obligation to these workshops and calls, changing organizational culture does require commitment. It takes time and energy to implement change and then hold yourself accountable to it. But the reward of a thriving workplace and resilient employees is worth it.

Learn more and request our workshops here:

RAFT Workshops: https://www.raftcares.org/engage/sexual-and-domestic-violence-organizations/