Making Cultural Changes To Boost Employee Well-Being And Staff Satisfaction

What is the primary driver of employee well-being?

There are many academic studies that focus on the organizational and managerial factors that improve employee satisfaction and performance. Organizational culture is one such area that plays a critical role and is a strategic prerequisite for business success in today’s knowledge-based economy. Pettigrew initially introduced the term organizational culture into the business literature.

 

Schein describes organizational culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. Organizational culture is, therefore, reflected in shared assumptions, symbols, beliefs, values, and norms that specify how employees understand problems and appropriately react to them.
 
The global expansion of business is constantly changing as organizations are increasingly participating in international markets. An effective corporate culture may be necessary, as the globalized market demands are increasingly difficult to improve employee satisfaction. Executives within companies can play a crucial role in achieving a high level of employee satisfaction and effectiveness. Today, the question remains, how executives can create a strong culture to enhance employee satisfaction?
 
The answer to this question lies in an executive’s demonstration to motivate employees and change the basic values, beliefs, and attitudes of followers so that they are willing to perform beyond their previous or originally level specified by the organization in their job description. To analyze the relationship between corporate culture and employee satisfaction, it is quite understandable that executives can, in fact, facilitate employee engagement by developing relationships among employees and departments within companies.
 
An executive can also consider both employee’s individual interests and the company’s essential needs. Also, they can identify individual needs of their employees and develop an effective culture to improve employee satisfaction by acquiring additional knowledge from employees and developing better relationships with them. Executives can, therefore, highly manipulate culture to improve employee satisfaction and conform to the needs and expectations of strategic goals and objectives.
 
In addition, a strong corporate culture can provide a shared understanding of the current issues and problems among employees, which satisfies employee needs and adds to financial success. Trust towards their executives’ decisions is also a necessary precursor to communicate best practices as a way of keeping the highest standard of operation in the industry and being the go-to organization for successful modeling of employee satisfaction. Therefore, when executives can effectively reshape, and in some cases, manipulate culture, the organization can see better satisfaction by employees and most importantly enhance their own effectiveness as leaders.
 
First, this develops a new and dynamic concept of culture within organizations. Importantly, this approach advances the current literature on employee satisfaction by offering novel insights into how corporate culture affects employee satisfaction. Drawing from the existing literature, this article also suggests new insights to identify corporate culture as a primary driver of employee well-being and staff satisfaction.