AT the beginning of my career I was interested in working for a particular organisation. One day I walked in with a copy of my CV in hand. This was long ago, before social media and even before the days of cell phones. Walk-ins were unusual but not considered ‘creepy’ or an act of stalking. The receptionist was kind enough to ask me to wait while she called a couple of people, and one of them was free to meet me. They talked to me for 20 minutes or so, kept the copy of my CV, and told me that they would get back to me. I came home expecting that I would not hear back from the company.

The same evening, I got a phone call from the company telling me I had seven to eight interviews the very next morning. The next day, I had my interviews and during the last interview with the head of the institution, I was given an offer letter. I had no ‘connection’ at the company and there was no sifarish. I did not know a single person I had met and vice versa. For as long as I worked at the institution, I never forgot this initial experience and it shaped/ coloured my perception of the organisation. During my years there I was always conscious that I wanted to continue and further the culture of merit and transparency that I had had a taste of.

Contrast this with another organisation that I had the opportunity to work for. Almost every appointment was on the basis of who knew the owner or one of the senior people. Salaries and promotions were decided on this basis as well. Employees were always uncertain about how they were performing; being in the good books of the owners and senior management was considered crucial to success. In fact, the criterion for success was just the approbation of owners and/ or the senior management. This led to a culture of nepotism, infighting and constant suspicion of all by all.

The first organisation had much higher employee loyalty and job satisfaction. It had higher employee retention, while employees at the second organisation felt insecure and uncertain all the time and kept looking for alternatives in case they were asked to leave or could find better organisations to work for. Employee morale was broken.

Constructive work cultures do not happen by default. They have to be designed.

Two of my high school classmates, post-graduation, applied for the same post at a bank. One of them had gone to a top university and had an impressive record of academic and other achievements. The other was an average student, but had a father who was at that time a very senior bureaucrat. The bank hired the son of the bureaucrat. Maybe, the selection board had its own reasons for hiring, or there was an understanding that having connections with the bureaucrat would be good for the bank. Or maybe he was hired on the basis of approach. Whatever the reason, the organisation developed a reputation for being open to nepotism.

Organisational culture matters. It matters for employee satisfaction and morale, and it shows up in employee performance as well. It matters for employee ownership of what they do or try to do, commitment and employee retention; hence, it impacts organisational performance over the medium to long run.

Constructive, positive, facilitative, collaborative, merit-based and transparency enhancing work cultures do not happen by default. They have to be designed and carefully crafted and implemented by the owners or senior management. This is hard work. The owners/ management have to own these values and then implement them through policy as well as practice. Even if such a culture is in place, it can be sustained only through actions that constantly and consistently reinforce it. I have seen too many organisations that started off with great speeches and aspirations but their actions soon betrayed the words and the work culture started slipping. It is actions that matter. Words only matter if they are backed by the right actions.

Even the first organisation that I referred to in this column lost many desirable elements of its work culture over time. It was the actions of subsequent leaders, too comfortable with initial successes, that led to the decline. The actions of these leaders told employees that right and wrong was less important than getting results, and even if they were achieved the wrong way, the important thing was not to be caught doing wrong. This led to the development of a very hypocritical culture where transparency and truth became casualties.

Culture is a plant that needs constant tending. Changing times mean the work culture has to change over time too. However, some of the basic qualities, about merit, transparency, honesty, etc, have to stay.

For better or worse, though, culture changes slowly. People seem to have adaptive expectations in predicting the culture. So actions have to be repeated numerous times before people start expecting certain outcomes. But it also means that a couple of mistakes are unlikely to destroy a good equilibrium.

Not too many leaders and senior managers give a lot of importance to organisational culture in Pakistan. Even where this culture is good, things seem to have happened by default and seldom by design. It is true that if you have a poor product or service, even a great organisational culture cannot save you. But, a great culture could create a great place to work — one that could serve all stakeholders well and for a long time.

We spend a lot of time in organisations we work with or for. A good place to work, where you look forward to going every morning, is not a bad goal. And it will enhance organisational productivity and the bottom line as well.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2026