Cultural Initiative Update
By: Orange County Communications
The COVID - 19 pandemic taught us many valuable lessons. One of the most impactful was the importance of culture in an organization given how adversity tends to bring out the worst and the best in people and organizations. So what is culture in an organizational context? Organizational culture is the collection of beliefs, values and methods of interaction that create the environment of an organization. Organizational culture encompasses the foundational values of a company or business. It also reflects an organization ’ s expectations and philosophy and the experiences of the employees and leaders within it, often determin- ing the group ’ s future direction. In the summer of 2021 Orange County ’ s senior leaders were challenged with how to tackle culture within our organization with the understanding that culture is an ongoing process, not a onetime action. But what does this have to do with individual employees? Every organization has a culture, whether leadership builds and maintains it purposefully or allows it to grow on its own. An organization ’ s culture defines how individuals work and function, making organizational culture a crucial element of an organization ’ s ultimate success. And a thriving organizational culture supports employees, fosters a positive work environment, and improves job satisfaction and employee engagement. Ultimately, that leads to better service to citizens and the community.
Let ’ s take a look at what we ’ ve accomplished and where we are headed next.
In the autumn of 2021, Senior Leaders identified a Culture Gameplan to help guide the project within the organization. The Gameplan consists of five (5) strategic areas: strategy, structure, measurement sys- tems, human resource systems and technology.
With this many things underway, on top of our daily routines and service to the community, staff quickly ascertained that professional assistance would be beneficial to crafting cultural change in the organization and in early 2022 contracted with Zelos to work with stakeholders to de- velop a cultural analysis and road map. From the beginning, staff through- out the organization worked together to set the following goals for the project: improve morale,
increase excitement among employees, establish better
communication channels, be the employer of choice in the area, and enable employees to explain the goals of the organization. The roadmap breaks goals into actionable steps and assigned volunteers to teams to tackle specific subject areas.
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