Growing Work Environment and Organization Culture

The essentials of the satisfied working environment can never be ignored. The workers satisfaction, output and well being is always affected by workplace environment (Carlopio & Gardner, 1995; Oldham & Brass, 1979). The satisfied workplace environment means every employee must be able to perform in tranquil environment, as a stress-free working environment is right of every employee. Different employees have different preferences related to the workplace (Rothe et al, 2011). The preferences of the workplace differ from person to person. Excellent occupational health and safety, manageable workload and work participation are the most enhanced forms to maintain workplace satisfaction through the improved working environment. Literature review will discuss as follows;

Data Analysis is analysed in Methodology.

Privacy:

The most important culture to flourish the productive and talented pool of human capital is privacy. Employees suffer lack of privacy that badly affects the workplace environment (Block & Stokes, 1989). This lack of privacy leads the workplace toward work life imbalances. Employees must have the option to personalize and control over their working environment (McQuire & McLaren, 2009). Personalization and productivity are strongly related to each other. 

Empowerment:

Limited decision making is right of every employee. Empowerment plays a vital role to create balance at the workplace. Therefore, equal workplace opportunities as well as opportunities for career and professional development needs to be more essential for a healthy workplace environment. Empowerment is an essential element to improve the organizational culture. A good working environment makes employees self-governed and self motivated. 

Objective-oriented Vs System-Oriented:

Heidi (2012) has divided the working environment into subgroups; object-oriented rationalization and system-oriented rationalization. There must be complete clarity to employees about which orientation is being used to maintain a good working environment. These rationalizations change employees’ behaviours. Effective communication help to cover the gaps in peer and in top-down hierarchy.  

People-oriented vs Territory-oriented:

This rationalization contains whether orientation of culture is for encouraging employees in organization(high empowerment) or dependent on the orders(zero empowerment). Goals behind objectives are to fix problems. Structures are made to balance the system. Employees and territory subdivisions are enriching the social activity and maintaining the equality for employees at the workplace. Therefore balanced support and supervision is necessary to lead employees toward a healthier working environment to give satisfied output. 

Effective communication:

Open communication at the workplace results in good relations between employees to understand the necessities of the workplace. Strong culture ultimately leads organization toward the shared vision and shared goals. The strict rules and regulations are resistant to the strong and sharing culture. (Deal & Kennedy, 1982) argued that the weak  culture  may be a loosely joined link between employees due to the strict rules embedded over them. These strict rules in fact create diversity between employees’ personal and organizational goals.

Adequacy of Resources and Facilities:

This is one of the major issues. Employees must be facilitated to make their working environment that would help and support the system (Holman, 2003; McQuire & McLaren, 2009). The environment has a great impact on the employees output. If the environment is supportive and well designed, then employees are more motivated to give the desired outcome. When human needs are considered to design the workplace environment, then employees give efficient performance (Stallworth & Kleiner, 1996). Therefore the needs and wants of the employees must be at the first target in the working environment because of its ability to maintain a level of autonomy. One survey suggested that the improvements in the design of the workplace environment increases output from 5 to 10 percent (Brill, 1992). This survey shows that employees are intended to perform their best, if the environment is supportive and well designed. 

Flexibility:

Flexibility to choose a desired working environment leads to a more satisfied workforce. Flexibility to choose the furniture and storage elements within the workplace enhance the environmental satisfaction (O’Neill, 1994). Effect of lighting in the working environment has a serious relationship with the employees’ satisfaction. Mendell & heath (2005) found that in the daylight employees are more able to work better. Environment deficiencies lead toward the poor working conditions (Heath & Mendell, 2002). The environmental deficiencies become massive within no time and reduce the satisfaction and involvement of employees.

Job Involvement:

Craig et al. (2008) found that dissatisfaction can be reduced by arranging the effective facilities; management strategies must focus on areas of improvement related to the working environment. The facilities must be properly arranged for the employees to perform effectively. The office building design has much more impact to improve employees’ performance and satisfaction (Leung et al., 2005). If the employees are satisfied, then they would be involved. The involvement leads the employees toward the commitment with the entire organization.

Beliefs and Attitude:

Organizational culture is being studied over a longer period of time. Stewart (2010) stated that the strongest content of the organizational culture is beliefs and attitudes. The members of the organization make the culture with passage of time. The norms and beliefs help to understand the culture of organization. Therefore, the norms and beliefs are created by the employees through the different experiences of the working environment. Organizational norms and values have a strong effect on employees and members of the organization; people use to explain about the organizational working environment according to their beliefs and attitudes. 

Positive Reinforcement:

Organizational culture is the innermost driver of better business performance (Gallagher et al., 2008). Positive reinforcement is required to implement, as organizational culture is the strongest content for the employees to have better working conditions. Ultimately the good organizational culture leads toward a good working environment. Barlow, (1999) stated that the organizational culture has great influence on employees’ ideas and ability to use the resources in a meaningful way. Organizational culture not only influences working conditions but also the environment for resource utilization.

Tangible and Intangible Asset:

Working environment is tangible but culture is an intangible resource of organization. Shahzad et al., (2012) divided culture into many groups to understand the importance of the culture in the entire organizational level. Organizational culture actually controls the behaviours of employees. The working environment and organizational culture improves the employees’ morale. Employees have their specific needs and behaviours and on the other hand organizations expect their own different objectives to provide them specific facilities (Morgan & Allington, 2003). So there must be a prudent balance between the employees’ needs & behaviour and organizational expectations. For the higher expectations, the organizations are needed to provide a high level of working environmental facilities to employees and well-maintained & ideal organizational culture.

Normative Glue:

Thinking and decision making is an important component of employees’ job for better idea production. Organizational culture is based on the relational system that actually explains how people are able to think and to make decisions (Pettigrew, 1979). Culture attaches employees with each other. Organizational culture is ‘normative glue’ which holds the entire organization linked (Tichy, 1982). Philosophy, norms, values, behaviours is actually the cultural glue that holds the entire organization linked (DeWitt, 2001). Culture actually defines boundaries of norms in organization. 

Job Commitment:

Organizational culture is taken as the input of environment and behaviours are taken as output (Mowat, 2002). Environment and behaviours is actually a crop of organizational culture. Development of organizational culture is influenced by internal reliability; it affects climate, commitment and environment within an organization (DeWitt, 2001). In other words it is the source of more interaction among employees. Improved commitment leads to improved culture and improved culture makes employees more committed ( commitment ↔ organizational culture ). 

Stability and Integration:

The organizational culture is the most powerful tool. Organizational culture is capable of constructing two important factors of a social group; 1) structural stability of a group 2) integration of a single item in the supervisor standard (Schein, 1995). There must be strong commitment with management in a sense of shared culture. Managers as a supervisor must take steps to reduce the gap between the employees and try to develop the strong culture for the sake of desired achievement (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). 

Temperature and Ventilation:

Temperature at the workplace affects the working performance and social behaviour (Leung & Fung, 2005). There are multiple studies which found that the workplace social behaviour changes with temperature rise and fall. There must be proper ventilation systems at the workplace for a healthy environment (Wargocki et al., 2002). Temperature is seen for the shorter time span but it has great and long term effects on organizational culture. Control at the workplace temperature not only reduces the financial and environmental cost but also improves the quality of work life, comfort and output (Nicol & Roaf, 2005). Therefore, temperature concessions in the working environment can never be ignored. 

Noise-Free Zone:

Noise-free environment involves more creative task to be performed in the better way. Noise creates stress, disturbance and lack of concentration at the workplace (Roper & Juneja, 2008). The workplace stress is the major issue of work life imbalance and it causes many diseases. The lack of concentration at the workplace contains a lack of creative thinking to perform the task. Noise increases the job dissatisfaction among employees (Leung et al., 2005). The bad environment at the workplace is a major reason for dissatisfied and uninvolved employee behaviour. Stress, anxiety and depression are sometimes increased by the bad working environment (Holman, 2003). Noise may disturb employees through stress, distraction and work overload (Sundstrom et al., 1994) Therefore, to prevent from the stress there must be better working conditions for employees. Craig et al. (2008) found that air, temperature, space solidity, flexibility, adequate use of resources and controllability has great impact on the working environment. The performance and output of employees at the crowded areas is always affected. The employees who work at crowded areas are unable to perform well; high blood pressure, high level stress and job dissatisfaction reduce their performance (Leung & Fung, 2005). The management strategies that focus at the working environment improvement lead their workforce toward involvement and commitment with organization.

Shared Goals and Sub-culture:

Different organizations have their own working environment and organization culture. The subdivided units in the organization have their own subcultures. The sub-cultures result in cooperation but sometimes result in conflicts (Hagberg & Heifetz, 2000). There must be one shared goal in the organization and guided sub-cultures according to this goal. Hodgetts & Luthans (2003)  stated organizational culture is about coordination and integration between all the units of organization for improvement and efficiency. Thus, the culture must be used as a powerful tool in organization to create coordination and integration between subdivisions as well as between employees. If there is failure in any achievement, then the problem lies in cultures and subcultures not in the responsiveness, structures or the styles of leaderships (Mowat, 2002). There is a primary need to attain a strong organizational culture to achieve employees’ commitment. Schwartz (1994) built the significant cultural values in the relationship between cultural factors and personality in organization. The employees’ involvement is the major issue in each organization. If the organizations have a strong and involved culture for the employees, there would be strong commitment among employees for the organization. Therefore, organizational culture is known as the hidden instrument of coordination and collaboration between each individual that leads them towards the shared goal (Mowat, 2002). When there would be the shared goals, each individual is involved in the organizational culture for his stake.

Effective Leadership Skills:

The organizational culture plays an imperative role in recruitment, development, maintenance and all other weighty management decisions for human capital. The employee’s career aims, educational advancement and the status in the society is always affected by the organizational culture (BOLA, Business Open Learning Archive, 2001). The culture must be used as a strong strategic tool for the betterment of the career, education and improvement of the organizational environment. On the job success is ensured if the individual working habit matches the organizational culture (Giles, 2000). The employees must be given the flexibility to have their desired culture. New policies and strategies must consider the organizational culture. Organizational culture and norms give the actual power to the employees (Giles, 2000). Organizations must understand the power of the organization culture to maximize the abilities to achieve its strategic objective (Hagberg & Heifetz, 2000). The strong commitment of employees is required for successful achievement of strategic objectives. Achievement of the organizational culture is actually achievement of success and failure in the most changing business environment (Hagberg & Heifetz, 2000). Organizational culture is the right source of turning point from the edge of failure. Most of the organizations achieved prosperity from failure by changing their own culture (Toolpack Consulting, 2001). The organizational culture actually holds up employees.

Intervention Programs:

Implementation and intervention of specified organizational cultures is not an easy way. As it has dramatic effects for the employees in the long-run, it must be positively reinforced. Positive characteristics of the environment reduces the emotional exhaustion and improves self-actualization. They also suggested that there must be intervention programs for understanding the advancements in the working environment for the attainment of self-actualization. These recognition programs and self-actualization ultimately cause job satisfaction, job involvement and commitment with organization.

Implementation of Working Environment Act:

In Danish companies, there are ‘Working Environment Council; the Social Party’ to implement the “Working Environment Act”. It provides different types of occupational health and safety consultants to guide various working environment matters. The positive organizational environment can improve the outcome of the employees (Glisson & Hemmelgarm, 1998). Therefore, the working environment council is an effective step to achieve good working conditions. The study suggests that such councils are imperative to understand the needs & wants of employees and protects the working environment from unethical or unhealthy working conditions. There is a need to establish a positive organizational environment to get maximum job satisfaction. The committed workforce has a better scene of communication. Positive atmosphere assists low level of job burnout (Payne, 2000). Job burnout leads toward lack of organizational involvement. 

Talent Retention:

For the leading management, organizational culture, working environment and behaviour must be friendly, knowledgeable and realizing (Brooks, 2006). Due to friendly, knowledgeable and realizing nature, the culture is easily adoptable by the employees. Organizational culture affects success and behaviours of individual, team and organization (Shani & Lau, 2005). Thus, individual goals and objectives of employees participate in the Organizational culture. In short, the working environment is about the employees’ workplace satisfaction, involvement and commitment and organizational culture is about values, norms, assumption and true understanding of the workforce. Values remain constant over the time but it affects attitudes and behaviours. Norms are shared standards and desired goals. Assumptions are about how thoughts are indicated in an organization! Understanding is the thinking to deal with internal and external problems. The working environment directly or indirectly affects the performance and productivity. Supportive environment & culture, are key constructs that would lead towards the retention of talented human capital (Natalie et al, 2011). Organizational culture is a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behaviour for various situations (Ravasi & Schulrz, 2006). Ahsan, (2009) found that Pakistani software developers, technical staff and managerial staff all are much more affected by the working environment and organizational culture on their own level. He also concluded that working environment and organizational culture is 14% part of total satisfaction. IT organizations’ working environment and organizational culture are among the important issues to provide employees better and Quality of Work life.

Methodology 

Secondary data (Hussain & Saleem, 2014) based on sample size 260 is used in the study to show the significance of the working environment and organizational culture. The data was collected from the IT sector of Pakistan on the 5-scale Likert scale questionnaire strongly dis-agree, dis-agree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.

Table 1.1 shows the research questions and their results. Averagely 70.52% software developers responded positively, 22.68% developers were neutral, 6.8% developers responded negatively about the implementation of working environment and organizational culture in their regular operations.

(figure 1.1) Impact of working environment and organizational culture

Figure 1.1 shows direct impact of the working environment and organizational culture on employee job retention. This figure also shows the indirect impact of the working environment and organizational culture on job retention through the mediating effect of job satisfaction, job involvement and job commitment respectively. It means that by improving the working environment and organizational culture conditions desired retention rate can be achieved in the employees.

Table 1.2 shows that the correlation analysis of working environment and organizational culture (W.ENV) with the job satisfaction (SATSF), job involvement (INVOL), job commitment (COMIT) and job retention (RETNT) are 0.784, 0.762, 0.693 and 0.695 respectively. Strong positive correlation is found between the variables, as correlation lies between -1 to +1.

Working environment and organizational culture found significant characteristic to attain desired level of performance and timely completion of projects. Attaining maximum level of job satisfaction, job involvement and job commitment to retain human capital is a great challenge for the organizations. Desired level of working environment and improved organizational culture shows the norms, beliefs and attitudes of organization. So they should never be ignored to avoid long term behavioural consequences. 

Conclusion 

Working environment and organizational culture is a very broad concept. Effective strategies, time and complete devotion is required to implement its factors in the dynamic high-tech environment. Although it is not easy to attain employee satisfaction, job involvement and job commitment, quality of work life can be taken as a measure for the improvement and betterment of the organizational working environment and culture in the long-run. The working environment and organizational culture is found significant in attaining employees job retention. It can be used as a motivating factor for the employees to get a satisfied, involved and committed workforce . Working environment is considered tangible and organizational culture is considered an intangible asset for human capital. Positive reinforcement through effective communication and effective leadership skills can help in attaining the desired level of improvement.

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