Has the pandemic impacted the corporate culture of organisations?

• A joint webinar program by TMC, CMI and CIMA, moderated by Daily FT Editor Nisthar Cassim 

All corporate entities have their own unique culture. ‘Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviours that determine how a company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions.’ Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires.

Corporate culture therefore is one, if not the most important criterion on which corporates can be defined and judged! For many years, more so in recent times, corporate culture has and will continue to be a significant aspect of an organisation’s ability to attract and retain good employees.

Corporate culture of an organisation begins with the leadership!

Corporate culture begins forming when a CEO communicates his desired values and norms to all employees (i.e. setting a ‘tone from the top’). For example, he might express views and give directions on fostering innovation, improving safety standards, prioritising customer needs, or tolerating dissent. Employees then interpret these instructions from their own perspectives and communicate their views to each other and within their teams. All of these interpretations form a corporate culture comprising values, norms, and customs, which together establish tacitly agreed rules for behaviour.

In this backdrop, has the corporate culture changed in view of the pandemic? The same CEO/leadership that very successfully leads the organisation with an excellent culture, has had to face this unprecedented challenge of the pandemic, where ‘Work from Home’ (WFH) has become the norm.

Leadership/management for a long time (over 18 months) have ‘not’ engaged the employees! An important factor that is the most unnoticed is that employees have feelings and emotions. Changes must take place and people struggle with change and with each other due to change.  Management must make decisions, but not in isolation of workers. For the leadership to be in touch with the essence of the organisation and its people creates cooperation, a powerful force that generates team/group/individual agendas that allows workers to think for themselves and use initiatives without being dictated to or await instructions. 

The onus is solely on management which must drive culture and create the positive work environment through communication and trust. For an organisation to forge ahead, leaders would need to encourage workers to think that to get something, one must give something.

Therefore, in a climate plagued with the pandemic, has the hitherto excellent corporate culture changed in many organisations? Or has the existing poor corporate culture got worse? If so, how? Or has the culture been able to withstand the challenges of the pandemic?

To discuss this, TMC together with their partners Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), supported by Sri Lanka’s premier business newspaper the Daily Financial Times, have commenced organising a program to evaluate, assess and perhaps draw conclusions on this vital aspect of corporate management.

Some key corporate personalities are being identified; representing The Management Club (TMC) would be its Founder and President Emeritus, Past President of CMI and Chairman/MD of Mankind International Ltd., Executive Search Ltd. Aims and MPL group, who is considered the head-hunting guru i.e. Fayaz Saleem. 

CMI will be represented by its Past President and Past President of TMC and until recently Group MD/CEO of Ambeon Holdings and former Group MD of Brown’s Murali Prakash, Zahara Ansari, Country Manager of CIMA, and Kaushal Rajapaksha, President of CMI and Chairman of Minuwangoda Ministry of Industries, Industrial Estate, Vice President of Pakistan Sri Lanka Business Association, Vice President of Confederation of Small and Medium Scale Industries, Group Managing Director of Kalhari Enterprises Group and Sail Lanka Yachting Group and District Governor of Lions, District 306 B2, Immediate Past President of Plastics and Rubber Institute, Exco Member of Singapore and China Business Council.  

The program will be moderated by Daily Financial Times Editor Nisthar Cassim. The event is scheduled for late October this year. Further notice will be published in the next two weeks.