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The Organizational Culture and Organizational Structure of Zendesk

Introduction

Video an engaging visual content is taking over recruitment. Companies are using videos to achieve their talent acquisition objectives. Visual comprehension makes the target audience to better comprehend and retain the information sent, particularly concerning the culture of an organization. Video content is important because people are predisposed to share video content, and media video usage stands at more than 10 million daily minutes spent daily on viewing, which means it’s a platform with an unmatched audience. There are certain things to consider when creating a recruitment video. The video does not use boring corporate language and ensures that employees enjoy creating the video. Having fun ensure that the employees’ energy is captured with authenticity and show good vibes. Most importantly, the video shows the company culture. This report interprets a recruitment video from Zendesk in terms of underlying concepts, its organizational culture and structure.

Organizational culture

Organizational culture is the expectations adopted within an organization that guides the behavior of employees and is communicated through employee self-image, inner workings, and how they relate with the world. Organizational culture determines how employees identify with their organization and affect the way they interact among themselves, clients, and stakeholders. The culture of an organization is perceived through what people hear, see or feel about an organization and within it. Although people may come from varied backgrounds or hold high or low positions in an organization, they describe the culture of an organization in the same way.

Zendesk believes that it has created a culture where everyone belongs. At the end of the video, people who work at Zendesk are shown indicating the diversity in the company’s workforce (Zendesk). Their inclusion culture comes from their slogan of people first. The company strives to build a diverse team and considers diversity and inclusion as a cultural priority. Despite having such a large employment base, the company CEO gets to interact with the employees on a personal basis. The video shows team meetings led by the CEO who appears approachable based on how he chooses to approach the meeting, standing and very close to his employees. The employees also work quite closely, which indicates that they may have close relationships and identify each other. The part where the people working at the reception are introduced means the company recognizes all its employees as people and appreciates every member.

The involvement of every employee in this video might be an indication that employees are included at every level in matters of change. Working in group dynamics creates a culture that does not value individual performance. The mention of the team at every turn in the video may be a suggestion of the obstruction of individual roles from Zendesk’s mission. Involving every employee also shows that they perform their duties in line with the objectives of the organization. A recruiter will consider the diversity of the applicants knowing that the leadership team is emphasizing on diversity.

Seven dimensions of culture

There are seven dimensions that interact to capture the core of organizational culture. They include:

Innovation and risk-taking: today tech companies are encouraging their employees to be innovative and have the confidence to take risks

Attention to detail: this dimension requires employees to be focused on details, showcase precision and analysis.

Outcome orientation: this applies when managers pay attention to the results and not the techniques applied to achieve these results.

People orientation: the management consider the effects of decisions on employees

Team orientation: work is organized around teams rather than individuals

Aggressiveness: this asks the extent to which people are aggressive with a competitive spirit rather than easy-going and conforming

Stability: the extent to which activities within an organization maintain the status quo instead of growth or change

How Zendesk Uses Its Corporate Culture to Create a Competitive Advantage

Zendesk is a company that is able to put a hundred people in a single room and expect them to work together without any problems. For a company to reach such a point, it means the culture was developed from the beginning. In their recruitment video, one can see that the groups work in open spaces where many share the same space. Also, certain clips in the video show that Zendesk does not have a culture that is so corporate but rather one that is laidback.

With its twelve offices around the world, the company has been able to maintain an open culture that communicates widely and clearly. The company has also brought in different committees to take on group decisions. Zendesk’s culture has been able to retain its employees for many years because of its favorable culture. Since their talents have been associated with the company’s success, retaining these employees through a conducive culture creates a competitive advantage. The culture has also facilitated the recruitment of the best talent. As a software company, brilliant minds are a crucial asset in ensuring the competition does not surpass the business and take on its market.

Zendesk’s Organizational structure

Organizational structure directs how certain activities, including rules, roles, and responsibilities, are directed in order to achieve the objectives outlined by the organization. It also determines how information travels within the organization. Zendesk from the video appears to have a functional organizational structure where the company is subdivided into various departments on the basis of specialization. The employees of the company are shown in groups based on their departments. There is the marketing with their fish, sales and services team, engineering team, IT, support department, documentation department, finance and human resource. It is assumed that the executive team mention in the video is made of heads of these departments and may not possibly be a department.

Conclusion

Organizational culture is the beliefs that guide how certain things are carried out within an organization and how people within the organization conduct themselves. Zendesk has strived to create a culture of inclusivity that is not so technical and corporate looking. The company also operates under a team dynamic where group performance appears more important than individual performance. A good company culture translates to increased employee retention and an attractive work environment to capture more talent. The low turnover rate at Zendesk is a significant contributor to its superior competitive position. Zendesk’s functional organization structure subdivides the company into units based on specialization.

Works Cited

Zendesk. “This is Zendesk.” YouTube, 16 May, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0uaSU6IVN4&feature=youtu.be.