PWC: Companies with their own value system prove more resilient during crisis



10/22/2021 8:28 AM


According to the PwC report, companies with a strong corporate culture have adapted better to the current crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with employees complaining less about slowdowns in work processes and difficulties in communicating with colleagues and customers.



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With the growing demand for employees in the labour market, it's the corporate culture that can help companies compete more effectively for talent and adapt quickly to change. These are the findings of PwC's Global People Culture Survey 2021, which surveyed over 3,000 respondents in 42 countries.

The importance of corporate culture in companies' agendas has gradually increased in recent years, from 53% of respondents in 2013 to 61% in 2021. In addition, a significant proportion of senior executives and board members (66%) now say that culture is even more important to a company's business performance than strategy or operating model.

At that, the current 'pandemic' labour market crisis has shown just how much corporate culture can contribute to corporate sustainability.

81% of respondents, confident that their organisation has been able to adapt to the events of 2020, also said that their company culture has been a competitive advantage in the new environment. 73% of respondents from companies with a strong corporate culture said decisions were made faster (or stayed the same) during the pandemic, 64% said communication with co-workers was easier, and 66% said they were more responsive to customer needs.

At the same time, however, as the authors point out, many companies have great potential for developing their corporate culture. And the first thing that needs to be done is to work on its integrity - the perception of corporate culture among the top management of an average company and its employees is still different. The percentage of top managers who feel they are a part of the company (83%), are confident in its goals (79%) and are fully engaged (81%) is often significantly higher than among rank-and-file employees (54%, 65% and 54%, respectively). These differences in perceptions cause employees to lose faith in the importance of this culture - the proportion of employees who rate its importance to the company's performance above strategy or operating model has dropped to 46% in 2021, down from 66% in 2018, in contrast to the same figure for senior executives.

source: pwc.com


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