How do someones values relate to their culture and to organizational outcomes?

Organizational culture is incredibly important for the overall success of your business. It influences teamwork, productivity, and efficiency, which in turn increases employee job satisfaction and morale. In this article, we’ll unpack the different ways employees can learn about the culture in an organization. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #1 – Train your employees

If you want to nurture curiosity and learning with your employees, reinforcing culture can be done through training and learning interventions. Educate them about the organization’s main goals and objectives and the ins and outs of your corporate culture by organizing a training program. Doing a face-to-face session is a traditional way to do so. but, if you want to achieve higher participation rates from your team, then you might want to consider holding online training instead. 

EdApp has been used to drive habitual and cultural change and reinforce behaviors and cultural expectations through an online learning method called microlearning. This approach gives organizations the power to instill essential information in employees in a very digestible way. It can incorporate many elements of what makes up a culture, allowing employees to absorb more information in a shorter amount of time.

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Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #2 – Reinforce spaced repetition

Spaced repetition is a learning process where key information is repeated at regular intervals. Trainers and managers usually apply this technique to their training process to make sure that their employees will continue processing certain concepts in their brains, and not simply store and forget them later on. Likewise, you can also use it to help your employees remember your organizational values and practices and embed them into their long-term memory. 

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to reinforce spaced repetition. All you need is the help of a spaced repetition tool that can automate the entire process – like EdApp’s Brain Boost feature. This tool automatically pulls questions from your existing EdApp lessons and creates personalized quizzes based on the concepts your employees haven’t mastered yet. These questions will then be sent to them at a predetermined time. The rule is simple – the more answers they get right, the less frequently they’ll receive the test questions. By repeatedly sending these lessons to your employees, they’ll better understand and remember your company culture. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #3 – Talk about organizational stories

Organizational stories are often based on memorable past events that are repeatedly talked about and shared with other employees – particularly new starters. These stories can include narratives or events relating to founders, conquers, successes, and failures of the organization. Values are often reinforced through the re-telling of stories, as is what engaged employees should and should not do.

Incorporating story design into your learning interventions can be a very powerful tool to equip your employees with real-life examples of the right behavior. If you’re a little unsure about how to use this learning approach, then you might want to consider taking EdApp’s Story Design course. This course will guide you through the right way of structuring and delivering your stories, and how you can make them strong and relevant. It follows a microlearning design model and is jam-packed with interactive elements like games and quizzes to secure higher retention from its learners. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #4 – Set rituals and ceremonies

Rituals and ceremonies refer to repetitive patterns, which can be used to emphasize an organization’s values and core practices, or what a company stands for. For example, if you have an outcome-based culture, one way to help your employees learn this culture is by regularly rewarding them for good work. Offer material prizes like a gadget or a coffee voucher for your company’s top performers. You can also organize monthly lunches with your team to celebrate their performance from the previous month. Setting such rituals and ceremonies sends your team a strong message about your organizational culture. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #5 – Assign organizational heroes

Organizational champions, who are often referred to as ‘heroes’, are the top talents who perform in an exemplary manner. These people have the behavior and work ethics that best reflect the philosophy and culture of your organization. Having these figures as role models in a learning organization will give the other employees an idea of the person they should follow to adjust and adapt to your company culture. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #6 – Establish cultural symbols

Symbols serve as a representation of an organization’s culture, which instills a sense of identity and drive in employees. They traditionally communicate with those in the organization through unspoken messages like company logos and branding. You can also teach your employees about organizational culture by adding messages on office walls, creating unique room labels for meeting rooms, or distributing office merchandise.

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #7 – Use a consistent tone of voice

A tone of voice is often used by organizations as a way to characterize their brand and culture through words, both spoken and written. Consistently using your company’s tone of voice, whether speaking with someone within the organization or your clients, will help everyone on your team to learn your culture and adjust to it accordingly. For example, if your company wants to establish a formal culture where people with greater authority should be addressed differently, then the pronouns “Mister” and “Ma’am” should be used all the time. Meanwhile, a more casual and playful tone should be adopted if you want to build a friendly and personal workplace culture. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #8 – Organize team-building activities

Another way employees can learn culture in an organization is through team building. Organize activities that will bring your employees together and give them a better grasp of your company’s brand and culture through bonding and connection. Team building is also a great way for the members of your organization to learn about each other, like how they communicate, plan, and solve problems. They can then use their observations for improving their work habits and ethics. 

For remote teams, you can also set up team-building exercises that will allow your employees to bond virtually, regardless of their location. Check this list of virtual team bonding activities for how you can bring everyone together and teach your organization’s culture in a virtual setting. 

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #9 – Offer mentorship programs

Mentorship programs allow employees to interact with their seniors or high-performing colleagues. The process is simple and straightforward. Mentors will share their knowledge and experience with their mentees and watch them closely until a specific goal is met. Offering this type of program is one of the best ways employees can learn about culture, as they’ll get to observe it directly and closely from someone who probably best represents your organization’s culture, beliefs, and values.

Ways Employees Learn Culture in an Organization #10 – Allow mobile learning

With the significant increase in smartphone users today, why not take advantage of this trend to teach your employees about your organization’s culture and values? Adopting a mobile learning approach will give your employees the ultimate convenience to learn more about your company culture anytime and anywhere. And just think about how many field employees and remote workers you can train and educate about your company culture by making learning easily accessible through their handheld devices. You’ll see a higher level of participation from your team by using this learning strategy.

EdApp is the perfect place to create learning materials that will adapt perfectly to any device, including smartphones. This is because its course authoring tool comes with course templates that have been optimized for mobile use. Even better, EdApp has a lot of other features that can help improve mobile learning, like a push notification that will notify your learners of mandatory courses or quizzes. There’s also an offline feature that allows them to access their training through their smartphones, even with no Internet connection. 

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