Authentic Corporate Culture

How Generational Diversity Can Influence Workplace Practices

Aug 18, 2007

An authentic corporate culture to Gen Y means that policies and practices align with corporate core values, mission statements, goods and services and an overall vision.

Have you taken a promotion without a raise? Have you supported policy that was unethical? Do you say that people are the biggest asset to your company and then lay off staff and double the remaining staff’s workload? Does your CEO demonstrate the corporate values in his or her work style?

Working with authenticity means practicing what you preach. It means making sure that your actions match your message. If your corporate values or mission statements do not correlate with your actual corporate culture – look out! The Gen Y’s in your staff will vote with their feet as they will see the hypocrisy and will not tolerate less than an authentic corporate culture.

Gen Y’s have seen their baby boomer parents work hard to achieve their modicum of success. They have also seen their baby boomer parents be laid off or over looked for promotions after years of dedicated service. They see the hypocrisy in the workforce of yesterday and they are determined to make a difference by protesting unauthentic behaviour.

If you hire Gen Y’s, then expect to work with integrity to lead them. Expect that they will be incredibly tech savvy and because of their infancy entrenched with high tech, they will want things to be logical and succinct. They abhor mixed messages. They love being emotionally connected to the work. Throw out policies and procedures that have never made sense from an ethical point of view. Create human resources practices that demonstrate flexibility and an awareness of Gen Y’s need for professional growth and lifestyle accommodations. Create job development plans and not job descriptions and you’ll be on the right track when working with Gen Y.

The labour market is shifting. Generational diversity in a corporate culture is becoming a hot topic. Soon the demand for employees will far exceed the talent available. If you do not take early warning signals and clean up any corporate culture incongruence, your reputation will travel at the speed of light, well actually the speed of the internet. Gen Y’s will voice their opinions through blogs, instant messages and other communication tools and realize that their audience is the world.

Take your executives (C Suite) into a boardroom. Ask each of them to define your corporate culture, mission statement and corporate core values. Then ask them to share with the group. If there are inconsistencies in definitions, start there. If your CEO, CFO, COO and CIO are not in complete alignment, the lack of authenticity will be transparent to the Gen Y’s on board.

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The copyright of the article Authentic Corporate Culture in Leadership Training is owned by Joni Rose. Permission to republish Authentic Corporate Culture in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.