Culture and HRM

Culture refers to an embodiment of means of communication, habitats and behaviorism among a group of individuals. Due to rapid advancement in technology, today's culture in organizations, more commonly known as corporate culture, has changed drastically. Concepts such as globalization, tele-working, virtual offices, have presented windows of opportunities to businesses that were not available before, but incorporates different cultures together. For example, tele-working concept and the ability to acquire better talent from a wider region at a lower cost along with it securing a competitive advantage over rivals, businesses seek to employee diverse cultures and norms to their structure. But how does this impede on the role of HRM (Human Resource Management)?

Impact of Culture on Recruitment

In the past recruitment basically involved developing a job description and requirement and advertising it for acquiring a pool of candidates. Therefore, the management can focus on selecting the best skill for the job. But in today’s world due to further reach in recruitment people with different cultures and social norms could also apply for the vacancies available. Then interviewers are faced with the problem of not just identifying the best fit skill, but also identifying the person with the culture and social norms that best fits the organizational culture.

Impact of Culture on Training and Development

Training and Development is a core concept which is widely used for organizational development, which enables organizations to make faster and more accurate decisions and problem solving. Creativity and innovation are the crucial factors that play an important role in this training and development phase. Yet according to studies, such as Tushman and O’Riley (2002), organizational culture or corporate culture plays a vital role in instilling and inspiring creativity and innovation within a workforce. Therefore, the problem for HRM personnel resides in determining the right mix for the required corporate culture. Also with the employment of diverse cultures, traditional classroom and seminar learning may not be enough to cover the gap in knowledge curve. New means must be developed to generalize the training and also to reduce the gap in knowledge curve created during the T&D phase. Finally, T&D must facilitate on how these diverse cultures integrate with the corporate culture or whether changes need to be made progressively to corporate culture to accommodate to the recruited diverse cultures. 

Organizational Culture and Performance Management

Improvements in productivity lead to certain factors in improving culture of an organizations, such as employee commitment as norms, values and objectives. Corporate culture helps in organizational development by keeping the learning environment strong, and in turn is vital for improving the performance of employees. In any business regardless of the industry, employee performance is considered to be the backbone of the organizational leading it to growth and development. Therefore, a vital role is played here by corporate culture.

References

• Adewale, O. O. & Anthonia, A. A., 2017. Impact of Organizational Culture on Human Resource Practices: A Study of Selected Nigerian Private Universities. [Online] Available at: http://www.cjournal.cz/files/154.pdf [Accessed 5 July 2018].
• Mayhew, R., 2018. How Does Culture Impact HR Policies?. [Online] Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/culture-impact-hr-policies-61558.html[Accessed 5 July 2018].
• Tushman, M. & O'Riley, C., 2002. Winning through Innovation: A Practical Guide in Leading Organizational Change and Renewal, Boston: Harvard Business School Press.