Too few managers really consider the subject of corporate culture. Quite often, it's taken for granted, with some not hesitating to speak of the company's DNA. But while DNA may be fixed and immutable in time, corporate culture is a dynamic subject, in perpetual motion and reinvention.
Corporate culture: a subject neglected by managers in France?
The report from Grant Thornton' s 2019 study showed that 39% of boards in France (versus 61% at European level) established internal control procedures to assess corporate culture in the broadest sense. Only 21% of these same boards in France (versus 42% at European level) put this subject on the agenda of their meetings.
All too often, corporate culture is on autopilot in companies, with the idea that it should be self-managing, or that it should be the sole consequence of other strategic and operational initiatives undertaken by the company and its businesses.
In France, only 39% of managers have processes in place to assess corporate culture.
Grant Thornton study
Corporate culture must be a component of HR strategy
HR strategy, like other key corporate functions, is an essential piece of a company's strategic puzzle. It helps to inform management's choices for the future, and to bridge the gap between an organization's current reality and its desired future development.
At iQo, we have set ourselves the following ambitions within our areas of expertise Human Dynamicsto make HR strategy a key component of the company's long-term strategy, with a visionary approach that does not limit the HR function to implementing the operational strategies of other departments.
In this context, corporate culture is one of the tactical areas to be included in strategic HR thinking.
Rethinking corporate culture in the face of employee disengagement
Did you know that employee disengagement costs an average of €15,000 per year per employee (source: Workplace Wellbeing Index, 2020). The reasons for employee disengagement are too numerous to list here, but this figure should sound a warning. Working conditions have changed radically in recent months. We invite you to read our previous articles on this subject:
- How is teleworking shaking up organizations?
- The economy of isolation, or how to (re)start a business far from the company?
- How can we predict the impact of hybrid working on employees' mental health?
These new working conditions raise two questions:
- How can we rethink the employee experience in a hybrid mode, shared between face-to-face and teleworking?
- How can we adapt and rethink our corporate culture in an era of digital transformation and Positive Impact expectations?
HR people and managers are often in the habit of referring to their company and the team they recruit for as a "family". It's a common enough metaphor. Yet:
- they sometimes choose to lay off some of their employees
- they make recruitment mistakes and must correct them
- they have "resources" they no longer need and need to let go.
The family metaphor clearly has serious limitations. Patty McCord, former head of human resources at Netflix, argues that HR professionals should instead use the sports team metaphor and embrace the transient, project-based nature of all professional relationships.
Startups also disrupt HR and corporate culture
Patty McCord argues that most companies have it all wrong when it comes to recruiting and managing talent because, she writes, high performance requires total freedom, transparency and accountability.
In her book, Powerful, she argues that traditional HR should undergo a revolution, create a culture of "freedom and responsibility" where all workers are "powerful enough" to do wonders, and embrace "radical honesty" in the workplace.
While at Netflix, she helped CEO Reed Hastings create the famous Culture Deck that made Netflix's HR principles and management style famous the world over.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg once said of the Netflix game that it "may well be the most important document ever to come out of the valley".
Patty McCord advocates "radical honesty" in the workplace. She insists that managers must learn to "say goodbye" to employees who are no longer able to meet their company's rapidly changing needs. All employees must be hired as "fully trained adults". As a result, they will need neither supervision nor control.
McCord goes so far as to accuse the old pillars of 20th-century HR of being a gigantic waste of precious resources:
- annual performance reviews
- retention plans
All these HR practices are useless when dealing with fully trained adults.
Here is a series of fundamental practices and ideas that support the company's culture of innovation:
- Open, clear and constant communication about the work to be done and the challenges to be met;
- Radical honesty in the workplace because adults are equipped to hear the truth;
- The CEO is the creator and guardian of the corporate culture;
- All actions are based on what's best for customers and the company...
Being transparent and telling people what they need to hear is the only way to ensure that they trust and understand you.
Patty McCord
To find out more about transforming organizations

Improving the employee experience thanks to data
At iQo, we draw on our experience in supporting organizations, employees and managers to turn data into an effective tool.

The future of work: how teleworking is shaking up organizations
Zoom, Teams, Slack are all tools that have become part of our daily telecommuting routine. Before, a meeting or appointment was (almost) unthinkable if

The future of work: what is the isolation economy?
For more than a year now, the health crisis has been shaking up our relationship with work, establishing an unprecedented distance. This is embodied in the rise of telecommuting,