Sam Murray Examines the Critical Role Executives Play in Changing Company Culture

Editor's Note: Sam Murray has retired since this article was published. To connect with an HR strategist from her team, visit the OneDigital West Region team page.

Company culture is directly correlated to the health of your organization and has a direct impact on an employees’ ability to perform duties, their ability to work as a high-performing team and feel a sense of belonging.

Earlier this year, Netflix dismissed communications chief for showing “unacceptably low racial awareness and sensitivity” demonstrating how seriously Netflix takes corporate culture and how influential leadership can be on company culture. Executives can take strides to clearly define and demonstrate the company’s core beliefs but they also must value and abide by them. In the recent article “Bad Company: Fixing a Toxic Company Culture” published INTHEBLACK, Sam Murray, managing principal for OneDigital HR Consulting, Southern California, agrees that the implementation and subsequent display of proper company culture begins with the people at the top.

If you don’t deal with the core beliefs of the people at the top, it’s just going to trickle down... [these companies] had policies, they trained people, but the people at the top are the ones that are the most guilty of that behavior and people see that.
 
Employees recognize inauthentic behavior, and so then pretty soon nobody’s behaving correctly, even though the policy is written. Everybody signs their documents that they are trained, but once you allow it at the highest level it eventually becomes a virus in the company.
 
— Sam Murray, Managing Principal, OneDigital HR Consulting, Southern California

Read the full article here.

Discover more about the importance of creating a culture that reflects corporate values and check out the blog post, Why Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Culture are Crucial to Attracting and Retaining Top Talent.