A conversation with a friend who is a Human Resources Director for one of the biggest construction companies on the continent sparked a thought about the critical value of organisational culture to the long term sustainability of business. Thinking about it even more within the context of the unplanned-for and swift changes brought on by the pandemic to business in the past three years. The question I asked her was: are companies now open to taking organisational culture audits past pandemic or is the prevailing attitude continuing to be that HR will take care of it? I could be wrong, but to me it seems like the latter is the case, which would be a huge mistake if my unscientific assessment is correct. In the years that I led the Corporate Communications function in various public and private sector companies including German multinationals in the automotive sector, one truism remained. That truism was none other than the often quoted Peter Ducker saying: “Culture will eat strategy for breakfast”! Yes, it certainly was proven true, time and time again, that no matter how well designed your strategic plan is, including your turn-around plan (hello State-Owned Enterprises), without an appropriate supportive culture, that brilliant plan will fall flat!
Drucker could have said it in the 90’s but it remains true today. The culture conversation came as we were reflecting on the International Labour Organisation’s report, titled “The Next Normal: The Changing Workplace in Africa.” The report documents changes that have been forced onto workplaces by the pandemic and examines how businesses from across Africa view and respond to them. It was developed with support from the Bureau for Employers Activities of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the ILO Regional Office for Africa, in partnership with employer and business membership organizations (EBMOs) from across Africa. It covers fifteen countries in Africa and takes a mixed methods research approach that includes a survey that took place from June to November 2021 covering 1,017 formal sector businesses. The report highlights the top 10 workplace trends driven by the pandemic. Now on reading about these trends, one can only hope that Internal Communication practitioners will be getting the support – leadership leading from the front and owning the organisational culture change interventions – and financial resources to elevate and prioritise Organisational Culture Change interventions. Doing so will help stabilise the multi-stakeholder environment the business operates in, support strategic objectives and the sustainability of the business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vuyelwaqinga