Organizational culture is the personality of any company, it corresponds to all those characteristics that give it an identity and allows it to differentiate itself from other organizations. It also creates a feeling of belonging among the members, putting aspects of their personal life in common with their professional life. This creates a sense of commitment among employees toward fulfilling the objectives.
To explore more about this topic and the unique Culture of MBI Talent Group, we talked with Mariana Leibinstein, Culture, People & Communications Lead at MBI Talent Group. In this article, she shares a bit about organizational culture from her perspective.
For Mariana, the culture of an organization “is a way of living and perceiving the company as a living organism, since there are many things that happen through and thanks to the people who are part of it”. It is how a company comes to life beyond the daily procedures and responsibilities.
”Organizational culture it’s a way of perceiving the company as a living organism, thanks to the people who are part of it”—Mariana Leibinstein
From her mindset, the culture of an organization can be guided or accompanied, but it is not something that a manager can create: It has to be designed with a people-centered approach, MBI Talent Group has many cultural activities, and they are the result of the ideas and initiatives of the team itself.
Multicultural teams
Mariana defines MBI as a multicultural team, with people from different regions, where everyone learns to have a global mindset adapting to any situation regardless of language barriers. In addition, they are characterized by teamwork, where helping others is always predominant, so anyone can raise their hand because “there will always be someone willing to help”.
They prioritize the well-being and mental health of employees, keeping in mind that on the other side there is a human with emotions and feelings. This resulted in MBI Talent Group participating in “Empresas Heroínas” Ranking, where they won third place in the Mental Health category. They also won fourth place as a “Hero Company” in the category of 50 employees.
According to MBI Talent Group’s model, each person is always at the center, so it is very common to have daily 1 on 1 conversation to know personal and work feelings.
For the coming years, the People team is working on more strategies to make everyone feel more comfortable. In this sense, the team is designing their experience plan for the whole process, and working on wellness initiatives to take care of everyone daily.
Tips for organizational culture
Part of this process is paying attention to other successful companies in terms of culture. In this sense, there are some organizations that have inspired Mariana in her planning. For example, MercadoLibre in Argentina: Although it has a hybrid model, many people prefer to go to the office instead of working remotely because of the sense of belonging. This is also possible for companies that do not have a fixed location, coordinating business and social meetings to feel closer, alongside different internal communications channels.
And there’s always room for fun! Another distinguished company is Mural, since some employees created their own music band!
“Culture is what happens when people show themselves as they are” -Mariana Leibinstein
Some tips for organizational culture leaders from Mariana are:
- Be encouraged to give people freedom.
- Celebrate the identity of each collaborator
- Value the entire team
- Be willing to hear more and talk less
- Allow everyone’s voices to be heard
- Do everything that you can so people feel valued
Mariana’s Background
About Mariana’s background: She’s a National Radio and Television broadcaster in Argentina, which means that she is authorized to mention brands in the media. For the HR world, through these studies, she learned to use her voice and body language to connect with others, no matter the distance.
She also has a degree in Social Communication focused on Journalism, allowing her to design 360° communications plans, considering marketing and internal communication, among others.
For the last ten years, Human Resources has been her area of expertise. Despite she didn’t imagine she would grow in this area, she keeps on learning every day, falling in love with People’s Experience strategies. She is also a Certified Life Happiness Coach, and one of her goals is getting a Master’s Degree in the following years.
Within MBI Talent Group she is in charge of coordinating external and internal communication actions (social media, marketing, campaigns, and events=, coordinating the People team with amazing members, managing the culture, and taking the time to take more actions regarding Happiness and Wellness.
“There are a lot of people involved in what I do, I cannot take all the credit” —Mariana Leibinstein
The importance of connect
MBI Talent Group model has helped Mariana to connect with her identity. Since within the HR industry, generally speaking, tattoos are still taboo, thanks to the company she discovered that it is possible to avoid prejudices, which encouraged her to get even more “ink”!
In addition, during the pandemic she discovered that helping others makes her happy, so she started volunteering in NGOs to help those in need.
Finally, with the aim of helping others but also learning from the best, she learned the value of being connected with other professionals and colleagues. For her, the secret is allowing yourself to make mistakes, learning from them, and talking with honesty about your learning, always.
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Guiding the culture of an organization depends a lot on the people who are part of it, and each company will do it in the way that suits them best, but always with the idea of making everyone better and that the objectives are achieved based on happiness and teamwork.
What do you value most about the culture of your organization? Stay tuned for more blogs.