Workplace Culture – when I hear the word I envision a petri dish in a biology lab.

Recently I bumped into a former work colleague at a social function. I asked him how his new job was going. He said, “Great – the culture is totally different from where I worked prior”. Our paths crossed at the same company. He moved on and I was still there. Culture. I became curious.

Workplace Culture – So what exactly is it? When you first hear culture, you think of a far away people, an ancient society, a distant land different from your current and from a different time. You think of the food they ate, how they cooked it, their traditional clothes, how they were made, how they were worn, the music they created and the folklore they shared in their evening entertainment. Then someone asks you, “Where do you work?” You tell them. Then they ask, “What is the culture like there?” You stop dead in your tracks. Culture? What do you mean? Atleast, that’s what I said.

Over the years I had the opportunity to work at many different companies. Little did I know at the time, what I experienced at each was some facet of their workplace culture.

* There was my earliest of jobs at a small tech startup of 23 staff. I joined them and 3 months later, I was out of work. They went bankrupt. Yes, I left a stable company, reasonable pay, good benefits and a great group of like-minded techies like myself.

* Then there was another tech startup that I interviewed with 3 times. That’s right – THREE times. Several days before Christmas and I was made an offer by the president and his VP in their office. When I asked for several days to decide, the president stared at me for 5 seconds, then decisively pulled the letter back from me saying, “Terry, I think I am going to retract my offer”. I didn’t even get a chance to turn the letter over to read it.

* Years later there was the large multinational defense contractor. After being there only 3 years, I eventually realized they were infamous for hiring when the contracts were inked and letting people go once contracts dried up.

* Finally there is the large service provider with many departments, process driven, however very informal in those processes. Each group accomplished very similar tasks in each their own way with little consistency of process between them.

All 4 of the above companies were acting out some facet of their workplace culture. The first company was gun slinging hiring, despite their debt woes from several years prior. The second company was expecting all employees to drop everything and do exactly what the president expected them to do wether Monday, Saturday, midnight or holiday. The third just rode their contractual wave, without wasting a day carrying employees through any dryspell of work. Finally the fourth had an atmosphere that allowed employees to do whatever they felt, whenver they thought, any way they pleased, without adhering to some common standard practise or process.

From the above, it is obvious that culture is not from a far away land or a distant past. It is right in front of you – today – now. You may not think about it much or think it only comes out at festivals and international events. The best example is your workplace due to the huge amount of daily repetitive hours you spend there. Even the excessively high amount of hours you spend, itself becomes a defining trait of culture. You may hear, “Company ABC, yes, that’s where employees work 70 hour weeks”. Certainly most any organization or time investment, even a volunteer effort we do, has a culture. But because we may spend much less time at a volunteer role, recognizing their cultural traits, may not be so obvious.