Home Depot’s organizational culture sets the context for the personal and group behaviors in the company. A firm’s organizational culture is the system of traditions, habits, values, and expectations that affect the behaviors of employees and customers. In Home Depot’s case, employees exhibit the company’s corporate culture to maximize customer satisfaction. As the biggest home improvement retailer in the United States, the firm uses its organizational culture to maintain an attractive environment where employees are motivated and where customers feel welcome. Home Depot’s organizational culture is a key factor that differentiates the company from its competitors.
Home Depot’s organizational culture empowers employees to fulfill the company’s goals for high quality service as a differentiator in the home improvement retail market.
Features of Home Depot’s Organizational Culture
Home Depot’s organizational culture is a major factor that supports success and leadership in the market. The company’s leaders recognize this relationship and continue to commit to a high performance culture. The main features of Home Depot’s organizational culture are as follows:
- The inverted pyramid
- Excellence in service
- People-centricity
- Collaboration
The Inverted Pyramid. Home Depot’s inverted pyramid presents the prioritization of some of its stakeholders in the company’s strategies and organizational culture. The customers are the top priority. Next are the front-line associates, then field support, and then corporate support. The CEO comes last. In this prioritization, Home Depot’s organizational culture ensures that corporate values are inculcated among all employees, especially the front-line workers at the stores. In addition, this feature of the organizational culture highlights the value and contributions of front-line workers, translating to Home Depot’s managerial approach that recognizes idea and action contributions from subordinates.
Excellence in Service. Home Depot’s organizational culture emphasizes excellent service. The company achieves high quality service through training programs and a human resource strategy that hires field experts like carpenters and plumbers. These experts provide expert advice when customers make purchase decisions. This characteristic of the organizational culture enhances competitiveness and is integrated in Home Depot’s generic strategy.
People-Centricity. In relation to the inverted pyramid, Home Depot’s organizational culture also involves a people-centric approach to work. All employees are encouraged to establish productive and enjoyable work relations and employee-customer relations. This feature of Home Depot’s organizational culture directly relates to the company’s emphasis on high quality service.
Collaboration. Home Depot’s organizational culture supports a community approach among workers. For example, the company encourages store employees to perform as a team. This characteristic of Home Depot’s organizational culture creates synergy from collaborative efforts, instead of relying on separate individual employee contributions only.
Home Depot’s Organizational Culture – Implications
Home Depot’s organizational culture empowers the company to achieve its service quality goals. Excellent service is a determinant of the company’s success, especially now that the home improvement retail market in the United States is saturated. Home Depot’s culture also emphasizes support for employees, which is critical in ensuring competitive advantage based on human resource capabilities. However, the company is still in the process of rebuilding its organizational culture, which was neglected during former CEO Nardelli’s leadership. Nonetheless, the firm is already on its way to reestablishing its organizational culture at Home Depot stores.
References
- Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (2005). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. John Wiley & Sons.
- Naranjo-Valencia, J. C., Jimenez-Jimenez, D., & Sanz-Valle, R. (2011). Innovation or imitation? The role of organizational culture. Management Decision, 49(1), 55-72.
- The Home Depot (2007). Orange-Blooded: The Home Depot’s Core Values.
- The Home Depot (2015). Our Culture.