Dining Culture Change: Organizational Culture

An organization’s culture is composed of the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the individuals involved. This leads to behaviors of the individuals and of the group. Culture in a particular organization can be difficult to define, but it can often be “felt.”

Have your ever walked into an office, store, care facility, or other organization and felt good, relaxed, comfortable, or experience other positive feelings? Has the opposite ever happened? You walk in somewhere and immediately feel stressed, anxious, worried, or other negative feelings? Of course, some of those feelings relate to what is happening with you at that particular time. But these feelings can also be reflective of the culture of the organization.

It is easy to see why culture change is difficult. It can be hard to define what the current culture is, never mind change it!

The good news is that culture is evidenced by behaviors. And behaviors are learned. Behaviors that receive positive results are repeated. Behaviors that are ignored or achieve negative results are changed. Attitudes, beliefs, and even values can also be changed.

Culture change in long-term care really started with OBRA-87. This created federal regulations to improve the quality of care and quality of life for residents in long-term care. Change is still happening!

Today, many facilities are trying to implement culture change in various ways—increasing choice in menu components and dining times, increasing choice in when to wake and when to go to bed. These are all good changes, but what are the underlying values, beliefs, and attitudes that need to change to really make culture change successful?

That is the topic for the next blog!