{"id":70249,"date":"2019-06-21T05:24:57","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T05:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essays.homeworkacetutors.com\/2019\/06\/culture-first-how-box-inc-s-hr-strategy-drives-business-success\/"},"modified":"2019-06-21T05:24:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T05:24:57","slug":"culture-first-how-box-inc-s-hr-strategy-drives-business-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colapapers.com\/us\/culture-first-how-box-inc-s-hr-strategy-drives-business-success\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Culture-first\u2019: how Box Inc.\u2019s HR strategy drives business success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\n\u2018Culture-first\u2019: how Box Inc.\u2019s HR strategy drives business success\n<\/p>\n

\n-ITBusiness.ca\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nSummary:<\/u>\n<\/p>\n

\nBox Inc. is a cloud content management company that empowers enterprises to revolutionize how they work by securely connecting their people, information and applications. Founded in 2005, Box powers more than 80,000 businesses globally (BoxInvestorRelations.com, 2019).\u00a0 Box Inc. competes for the multi-billion-dollar cloud services business segment, along the likes of major powerhouses such as Microsoft, Google and Dropbox.\u00a0 Christy Lake, Box\u2019s newly appointed Chief People Officer, who joined the company in early 2018 truly believes that in this fiercely competitive industry, it is within the company\u2019s HR strategy where Box can find success.\u00a0 Backed by the company\u2019s founder and CEO Aaron Levie, they have established themselves as a \u201cculture-first organization\u201d.\u00a0 Mr. Levie states strict priorities of \u201ccontinuing to build an organization that develops talent, celebrates diversity and cultivates a place for Boxers to do their best\u201d (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Any process for Box, whether it is performance, recruitment, rewards and compensation, physical office spaces\u2026whatever it might be is based on the idea of culture first (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nMrs. Lake is responsible for what would be considered a traditional HR department but she does so much more than that.\u00a0 Lake pushes Box\u2019s \u201cpeople strategy\u201d, which is essentially putting an emphasis on creating a sense of belonginess among employees.\u00a0 One way that the company creates that sense of belonging is its employee resource groups.\u00a0 Box workers started creating groups around common identities, or similarities that they shared and eventually Box, as a company, embraced it (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake says that these groups have become the foundation of its efforts around belonging.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The numerous resource groups vary from \u201cFamilies at Box\u201d to \u201cWomen at Box\u201d and these groups work together on a variety of things from education, to celebrations and will even collaborate on programming initiatives (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake claims to stay very connected with these groups in an effort to understand their worker\u2019s different experiences so that they are mindful and cognizant of those issues.\n<\/p>\n

\nTypically, Tech companies from Silicon Valley all the way to Toronto have experienced issues around gender and the workplace.\u00a0 Historically tech work environments favour young workers who are pushed to work hard, long hours and forego work-life balance.\u00a0 This is one aspect that makes it harder for tech workers with families to feel welcomed or able to compete in the industry.\u00a0 While things have gotten better in recent years within the tech industry, hurdles remain; women only accounted for 23 percent of the overall workforce at giant tech companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Box combats these issues by not only creating an inclusive environment but offering things like benefits that address the needs of different workers.\u00a0 Lake says that Box is connecting with families at Box to understand some of the things that are important to them and would create a more inclusive and welcoming workplace.\u00a0 Lake also says that these concerns are being built into their benefits roadmap.\u00a0 The company has put in a number of benefits last year for employees with families around balancing time at work and home and this year already has plans to grow its leave support for mothers, fathers, adoptive parents and parents of all kind (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Box has also implemented programming to support travelling Boxers who have young families and plans to add fertility benefits in the coming year (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake\u2019s and Box\u2019s efforts as a whole our showing.\u00a0 Box was listed as number 30 on \u2018Fortune\u2019s 50 Best Workplaces for Parents\u2019, noting \u201cthe transparency the company shows to each employee is pretty mind-blowing\u201d (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake believes that these efforts aligning to her \u201cpeople strategy\u201d built around their culture first approach is what will continue to drive business success.\n<\/p>\n

\nLake has highlighted and began to make changes surrounding the changing world of work.\u00a0 She realizes that people want to work for a company and an environment that they feel closely reflects their personal value set.\u00a0 Lake looks to attain the \u201ccomplete employee\u201d, not just the professional one.\u00a0 She believes the complete version of an employee is empowered to be more creative and innovative.\u00a0 In addition to this theory, Lake says Box isn\u2019t looking to increase work life at the cost of personal life, its about meddling the two (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake\u2019s final statements summarize the overall goal of her HR strategy, saying \u201cthe more that Box can connect with what matters and is meaningful to workers, the more we believe people are going to be able and interested in bringing the whole of their perspective into the work\u201d (Simpson, 2019).\u00a0 Lake is combining an inspiring work environment, meaningful and challenging work that gives employees the feeling of positive contribution and impact.\u00a0 \u201cWhen those three stars align, we have really great success\u201d (Simpson, 2019).\n<\/p>\n

\nConnection to HRM:<\/u>\u00a0 <\/u>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0This article is a real-life application of the importance of HRM in massively successful corporations.\u00a0 In this day in age, companies are looking more and more into ways they can differentiate themselves from the competition.\u00a0 This article shows the power of leveraging human capital to drive success in the technology industry specifically by creating a unique competitive advantage.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nMany themes were presented in the article, however some of the most notable that will be discussed includes recognizing the importance of human capital, creating an influential organizational climate, employee empowerment as well as organizational culture.\u00a0 These concepts all relate to the strategic role of human resource management.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0Human capital, as defined by the textbook is \u201cthe knowledge, education, training, skills, and expertise of a firm\u2019s workers\u201d (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).\u00a0 The text speaks of relating human capital to developing competitive advantage.\u00a0 This is exactly the root of Christy Lake\u2019s motives for her \u201cpeople strategy\u201d at Box Inc.\u00a0 Human Capital is key in today\u2019s society, yet sometimes human capital is not utilized and leveraged in the most opportune way.\u00a0 Lake is able to recognize the influx of human capital at Box, and she uses methods to create a sense of belonginess in the company.\u00a0 This in return will retain and truly allow her employees to perform to the best of their abilities.\u00a0 Lake also integrates this approach into all of the other HR functions, which the textbook states has \u201ca positive relationship with turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance\u201d (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nThe textbook defines organizational climate as \u201cthe prevailing atmosphere that exists in an organization and its impact on employees\u201d (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).\u00a0 Developing a climate that allows employees to actively engage in their work and feel backed by their organization is key to success.\u00a0 In essence a strong and positive organizational climate can help reach the potential of human capital.\u00a0 The two work in conjunction with each other.\u00a0 Box, specifically Lake\u2019s efforts to create a more inclusive and welcoming workplace is a large piece of developing a strong organizational climate.\u00a0 This is evident in Box\u2019s resource groups as well as benefits that address the needs of different workers.\u00a0 Positive organizational climate tends to lead to greater job satisfaction, which in Lake\u2019s hopes and based on HRM theory, creates business success.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nEmployee empowerment is \u201cproviding workers with the skills and authority to make decisions that would traditionally be made by managers\u201d (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).\u00a0 Despite the textbook\u2019s definition, I truly believe that empowerment is much more.\u00a0 I think, in congruency with Lake\u2019s views based on the article, that employee empowerment is about managing human capital in such a way that employees feel confident in their abilities to not only make decisions but also takes risks.\u00a0 I know it may seem like my definition does not appear much different.\u00a0 However, taking risks is a massive part of employee development.\u00a0 It is what creates technological breakthroughs and can truly be the difference between innovation and complacency.\u00a0 Lake encourages this at Box Inc., given by her drive for employee empowerment, which she directly suggests leads to more innovation and creativity.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0Organizational culture, Box\u2019s main goal, supported by their \u201cculture-first\u201d moto is defined as \u201cthe core values, beliefs, and assumptions that are widely shared by members of an organization\u201d (Dessler & Chhinzer, 2019).\u00a0 The definition in itself does not suffice for the importance of the concept with Box Inc.\u00a0 Organizational culture in relation to Lake\u2019s goal is more about achieving a company-wide culture that is uniquely apart of its identity.\u00a0 When we think of the most innovative companies, typically our minds are drawn to the likes of Apple and Google.\u00a0 Both these companies have found their own organizational culture, among the many years of operation.\u00a0 Many would argue this culture is a major driver to their amazing success and accomplishments.\u00a0 Box is trying to find the same type of identity within their own organization.\u00a0 This is an identity that does not only represent Box for the next couple of years but will be attached to their name for the rest of their company-life.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nConcluding Insights:<\/u>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0This article, written by Meagen Simpson was very appealing from an HR perspective.\u00a0 It is so fascinating to see how the concepts taught in class apply to major corporations, specifically a cloud computing powerhouse such as Box.\u00a0 Even though Box is a tech company, it was interesting to conclude that many of the factors for their success is not driven by tech at all.\u00a0 It truly is the people and the human capital behind the organization that makes Box so different.\u00a0 It linked so many concepts spoken about in the analysis above to Box\u2019s overall HR mission.\u00a0 I thoroughly enjoyed applying HRM theory to a real world multi-billion-dollar corporation such as Box.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0In the future, I think it is not only important, but it is integral that corporations use human capital to establish competitive advantage.\u00a0 Given that there have been hundreds of major players in the cloud computing business and only a handful have found success, it is quite clear that there is more importance to be found in the HRM functions then people have contributed to in the past.\u00a0 HRM is a changing landscape that is separating the \u201cgood companies\u201d from the \u201cgreat ones\u201d, and Box is just more evidence to support this.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nReference List\n<\/p>\n