Michael D. Moberly October 23, 2014 ‘A blog where attention span really matters’!
Company culture is a valuable, but intangible asset…
Readers recognize that a company’s ‘culture’ is a valuable and operationally and strategically critical collection of intangible assets which can favorably or unfavorably affect brand, image, goodwill, structural capital, and competitiveness.
As the U.S. and other countries’ businesses began their emergence from the economic doldrums of previous years, the Society for Human Resource Managers (SHRM) commissioned a survey in 2012 which queried 770 human resource leaders about significant workforce management and staffing challenges which the respondents reported, in rank order, the following…
- company culture management
- employee engagement
- employee retention
- effective performance management, and
- employee recruitment.
While I am confident readers’ and intangible asset strategists do not find these findings particularly revelatory, they are instructive. For example, when considered in the context that a ‘company’s culture’ frequently constitutes a convergence of intangible assets a full 90% of the survey’s respondents identified ‘company culture management’ as being (a.) important, or (b.) very important! For company culture advocates like me no particular surprise there.
Issues to take note of…
One is, the surveys’ findings should prompt management teams and c-suites to recognize that devoting time, energy, and a modicum of resources to building – developing, and sustaining an effective and sector relevant company culture will, in most instances, deliver strategically favorable and measurable returns that contribute directly to a company’s value, sources of revenue, and sustainability.
Second, the surveys’ findings give persuasive credence to the view that a well managed and customer/client/sector relevant company culture, whereby employees, management teams, c-suites, and boards collectively recognize, respect, and are consistently committed to sustaining the necessary intellectual, structural, and relationship capital, i.e., intangible assets, can, with little doubt, elevate a company’s overall performance.
Third, integral to both of the above lies the globally universal economic fact – business reality that 80+% of most company’s value, sources of revenue, and ‘building blocks’ for achieving growth, profitability, and sustainability today lie in or evolve directly from intangible assets, one of which, of course, is the sustainability of a sector relevant company culture!
