One size does not fit all

A culture of cultures: The power of microcultures at work

A monolithic view of culture no longer fits a world where diverse workforces seek greater autonomy and personalized work experiences—a world where organizations compete more from agility and customer responsiveness than by standardization and top-down control. But still, proclamations of culture by leaders start to sound the same. In fact, research shows the organizational values of multinational corporations sound largely similar to one another, with terms such as “integrity,” “innovation,” “teamwork,” “excellence” and “safety” frequently used. Despite the similar language, organizational cultures can feel very distinct from one another—suggesting that the difference is in the microcultures that bring organizational values to life.

In this episode, explore how microcultures in the workplace can help organizations stand out with major impacts on talent attraction and retention. Join Deloitte’s Jason Flynn and Google Cloud’s Tracey Arnish as they discuss harnessing microcultures to meet the needs of local teams while aligning to organizationwide values. They are followed by a Deloitte roundtable featuring Sue Cantrell, Julie Duda and John Forsythe.

I see HR playing several critical roles that help to develop healthy microcultures. And those include being the role of a cultural architect … As that cultural architect, we really can help business leaders and employees define the overarching values and the principles that will provide the foundation for the microcultures to flourish within. We're also change agents and once those practicals are in place, it takes time and active change management to inspire the culture to evolve. As change agents, we can guide the organization through those cultural shifts … Finally, we also are data analysts more than ever today, and we play a role of gathering and analyzing data on employee engagement and team performance and ultimately, the inputs to cultural health so that we can identify areas for improvement … HR is playing a really critical role sort of from the top of the house all the way down to the frontline employee.

— Tracey Arnish, Google Cloud