It is the dream of every company or organisation to acquire and retain highly qualified and dedicated personnel to ensure that optimal performance is attained all the time. The employer may decide to use the reactive or proactive recruitment approach. In a proactive approach where the company sells itself to the candidate, the company needs to showcase its company culture in order to attract high quality applicants.

What Is Corporate Culture?

In simple terms, corporate culture is the beliefs and behaviours that define and determine how a given company works. It determines how the management team interacts with its employees and how both parties handle external transactions. It stands for shared practices and values of employees and controls how the employees feel, act and think. It also forms the social and the psychological environment of a company as well as shows the personality of a company through core values, beliefs and ethics. A good corporate culture is built and maintained through the following elements:

· Vision – A good culture starts with a clearly understood mission and / or vision statement.

· Goals And Core Values – While the vision and mission sets the company’s purpose, the values set the mindsets of employees to achieve the mission and vision.

· Practices – Investing financial and manpower among other resources towards delivering the promise of the company.

· People – There must be people who share or with the ability to embrace a company’s core values.

In the recruitment business, a strong corporate culture is very important not only in the attraction of candidates to the company, but also in driving performance of the employees and retention of employees.

Why And How Is Corporate Culture Important?

Corporate culture becomes an important piece in recruitment in the following aspects:

Employer Brand – The brand involves the company’s mission, value and practices. The company brand plays a big role in candidates’ attraction, as employees always look to work in a company whose culture they can fit in. They choose the values and mission they are qualified and able to achieve, since they already have an image of how the employees are expected to behave, belief and think. This also helps candidates to avoid disappointment as the employer’s promise is set clearly through a strong culture displayed through the employer brand. The brand also affects the retention as well engagement of employees.

Employee Engagement – This reflects employees’ emotional commitment to the company and its activities. When employees are highly engaged, they care about their jobs and the company at large. The employees are ever devoted to doing their duties on time, which translates to assignment delivered on time and done to the highest quality possible. Engaged employees are always happy and this correlates to high productivity. It is therefore elemental for companies to invest in employee engagement incentives to obtain high standards and quality of services, excellent customer satisfaction rates and increased profits.

Working Environment - Corporate culture also plays a role in building and sustaining a productive work environment. A strong corporate culture should encourage a stable environment for all employees to ensure that everyone is free and comfortable to work in the company. A productive and sustainable work environment can be achieved through:

· Work-Life Balance – Striking a balance between work and personal life.

· Off-Job Activities – These may include team building activities, sports days and other fun activities that will encourage communication and fun interaction outside the work place.

· Employee Involvement – Involve employees in decision making process as well as listening to their suggestions and any complains.

· Training And Development – Develop employees’ skills through training, workshops and giving them opportunity to grow their career. This should draw paths for promotion and career advancement.

Importance of Corporate Culture in the Recruitment Business