Corporate Culture

I do realise I haven't been blogging for a while but I actually have always thought of noting my latest whereabouts. I do have a lot of draft posts that are half-completed or have a nice title that I don't really have time to finish it off. I'll try. But before that, let me update you a bit of my recent life.

I'm lately working at a multinational tech-company in Quarry Bay as a summer internship. I would be working for 2 whole months or 9 weeks. This is my first full-time job where I can actually get a glimpse of what working from 9 to 5 really means. I also went to several pretty decent movies including Sex and the City and Wanted. I'll be hoping to watch Hancock and Batman this summer too. ;)

I would like to talk a bit about the culture within different companies. As being taught in management courses, corporate culture is highly influential to employees’ behaviors. I have been to several other MNCs and all have rather different cultures that place the emphasis on different aspects. Some are very strict with the handling of confidential information with detailed guidelines and procedures concerning the disposal, distribution and storage of classified data; Some stress the openness and freedom that it gives to its employees. There is no clear hierarchy between different levels of employees and there aren't that much rules controlling the way of doing things. So how do these cultures shape the people within? For most of the time, you can get a snippet into how people work things out and their mindset by talking to the lower level employees. There was once a porter from a company I work for telling me to record all the document names that I was going to throw away in the storeroom and send the list to your secretary. (Mind you, there are close to a thousand documents in the room and my duty that week was to clear the entire room.) The reason was, just in case someone blames you for throwing their file, you can then say you sought the approval from the secretary and thus the burden, is no longer yours. To be precise and cautious is one thing, to avoid responsibility is another. I can foresee from the advice that the company emphasizes stiff procedures and guidelines and that people are often scolded for violating the rules and regulations. So they naturally believe that playing safe and to make sure you don't pick up the responsibility for doing something wrong is the best way to 'survive'. Rules and regulations are needed in all companies and especially when you are dealing directly with clients to ensure the quality of service delivered would be up to standard and consistent. The trade off, however, is that it will create a rigid culture where people care more about the rules than completing the work itself. And this culture means I have to use an average 1 minute to go over all the hundreds of (dusty) documents in the storeroom and record them before I throw them away though I'm sure no one even know they ever existed.