When talking about a fast growing organization like Ngern Tidlor, images of success and innovation that sets new standards in the finance industry come to mind. Who would guess that Ngern Tidlor underwent a period of tumultuous change to improve in many areas, including images and backend infrastructure? The most important factor that they have devoted all of their mind and soul in order to sustainably and efficiently strengthen business foundation is ‘Corporate Culture’.
Ngern Tidlor continuously strives to develop its corporate culture, even in today’s era as digital technology and new innovations become increasingly hot discussion topics and central focus points. These new innovations emerge from a fundamental corporate culture, but what exactly is the corporate culture? What is the impact? How can we create a corporate culture? Many people are seeking the answers to these questions.
Kanjanat Chalermjulamanee, the SVP of the People Learn & Culture team at Ngern Tidlor Public Company Limited, shares his views and experiences with past struggles, lessons learned, and direct experience gained in this topic. How powerful the corporate culture is. Let’s find out together.
“Every organization needs to achieve continuous growth so we must keep improving ourselves all the time. This is the why Ngern Tidlor never stops moving forward. We use our strengths in technology to drive the whole organization towards digital transformation. As a result, customers receive fast and convenient service through the sincerity of our staff. This is the same shared goal that everyone is working towards. In retrospect, if, along the way, people in the organization have refused to believe that they can create and impart opportunities to people in society or if they hesitated to think and do new things without fear of being blamed by their boss if they fail, where would the motivation to innovate be? Therefore, on the topic of transformation in the 'people's' organization, which is considered to be of huge importance by Ngern Tidlor's management, the secret sauce in this story has been the corporate culture.”
What does ‘corporate culture’ mean? It’s often repeated but perhaps not often properly understood.
“Many people view corporate culture as a tool or workplace lifestyle. Well, yes, but it depends on the point of view. For me, experiencing corporate culture requires belief and feeling. We tend to see corporate culture as something that comes naturally to members of an organization. It doesn't have to be embellished. But when culture is jointly and deliberately designed by all, employees can see the overall direction of the organization clearly. As for our culture at Ngern Tidlor, I see it in our expressed beliefs and values. While it might be hard to touch, we can feel how it affects the atmosphere in the organization. A working atmosphere that promotes happiness and quality of work is understood by all and we can choose to foster it ourselves. The Ngern Tidlor corporate culture is the result of deliberate and intentional design, not a natural phenomenon - corporate culture is by design, not by default.”
Why does a leading car title loan service provider such as Ngern Tidlor consider corporate culture a priority?
“Although Ngern Tidlor is in the finance business, we believe that ‘Every business is people business’. If we care for our people and ensure they understand our true intentions and if we can ensure every workday of them is full of happiness and meaningful, our people will become a strong force in driving the business forward. Corporate culture undeniably plays an important role in the overall direction of our organization and shapes the thoughts and beliefs of our over 7,000 employees. While we have encountered disruption in the past, such as due to COVID-19, Digital Disruption, and other external factors, and such events have forced us to adapt and make the impossible possible. I believe this is proof that our corporate culture works.”
When did Ngern Tidlor start to create its corporate culture?
“It started with rebranding efforts in 2016. In addition to adjusting the logo and external brand image, such as the signage in front of branches, we also wanted to make a change internally with our employees. We started to instill new core values and sought help from external agency. Eventually, we had catchy rhymes and cool dance moves as well (laughs). We used this set of core values for a while, but then we noticed that, although our employees could remember the words, when we inquired into their understanding of the values, everyone had interpreted the meaning in different ways. Ask 100 people and get 100 different meanings. We felt that it was not working. The agency wasn’t to blame as they had good processes in place, but to ensure that everyone in the organization truly understood our core values, we had to accept that they need to be much more than catchy words and must be put into practice. When time passes and things don’t seem to be working, we just need to accept and learn, then try again.”
Trial and error to find what works for people at Ngern Tidlor.
“We are strongly committed to learning. The book Delivering Happiness by former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is one of great examples. We were so eager to learn that we sent people to find out how to build corporate culture directly from the source in USA. Upon their return, we worked on it until, through trial and error, adjustments, and continuous evolution, our 7 core values emerged and were easy to read and understand, without any additional interpretation. Another book that provided inspiration was Start with WHY by Simon Sinek, which led us to find our purpose of doing business, enabled us to connect personal value with company value, and provided meaning to both the individual and the company. Best practices with products, processes, and systems can be replicated, but not corporate culture. If you want it, you must build it yourself. It takes time. The bad news is that there is no formula for success. Ngern Tidlor took time to search, trial and error different methods, and organize a series of workshops. It took us years.”
The secret sauce that brings imagination to life.
“Some organizations see this as a problem for HR to solve with strategy and communication. But, at Ngern Tidlor, we believe that corporate culture is about everyone and started by gathering people from various functions into our 'Culture Gangster' team, whose passionate members acted with only pure intentions, since there were no KPIs or special incentives. Much of the work was outside the scope of our regular BAU duties, but the team was comprised of passionate people who sought to participate in the design of corporate culture at Ngern Tidlor with advice and support provided by management.”
Did your passionate efforts result in positive change?
“We were satisfied with our efforts to develop and provide frequent communication, but the first employee survey revealed only 6 percent truly understood our core values. The team was stunned and started to work to better understand all the various components. We learned that there is no straightforward, ready-made solution that would be universally understood by the entire organization. However, the heart is consistent and sustainable communication. We appointed change agents called “Culture Heroes” to ensure that our corporate culture was present at every touch point in employee experience, starting from the onboarding and filling every moment until their last day with us. We conducted periodic surveys and designed fun gamification techniques to check the temperature of our working environment and analyze performance to further improve our activities and communications. The percentage kept increasing from single to double digits until now; this year, we have achieved 95 percent.”
Corporate culture is important but often neglected by management and perceived by the younger generations as just another fancy word.
“It depends on what the organization’s priorities are at any given moment. This is a sensitive matter and I respect every opinion. From past experience when talking with executives or related teams visiting our office, we discovered that they wanted to create the culture but were concerned about how it could positively impact the business. Are there measurable results? How can its performance be measured? Personally, I believe it to be self-evident. Many global organizations such as Starbucks, Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, and Amazon all proclaim their successes are due to a strong corporate culture.
I believe that primary factors of any generations for choosing to join organization is income and welfare. But compensation is no longer the only defining factor. Employees look for opportunities to learn and grow with the organization, a comfortable working environment where it is safe to realize one’s full potential. The beliefs and vision of the organization, and a sense of being valued at work are just as important. This is what we try to design and create. The words which describe a purpose don’t have to be fancy, but organizations must strive to make a tangible purpose. When employees understand that their daily work can solve problems and improve the lives of their customers, they can find true value in it.”
Inside – out: when Ngern Tidlor opened the house to visitors
“Initially, we hadn't anticipated opening up our doors on such a grand scale. We’ve always had people ask to visit our company and, since Ngern Tidlor loves fun and crazy activities, we decided to put our whole heart into it. We organize a monthly open house to welcome visitors, share our experiences in building corporate culture, and give tours of the working environment at Ngern Tidlor. Once the news quickly spread by word of mouth, more and more companies have contacted and visited us. We have also received feedback from participants which states that 3 hours is too short to absorb all. We had to think up a way to continue these knowledge-sharing activities and ensure maximum benefits for participants. That’s when we launched our TIDLOR Culture Camp.
We believe that, after completing this activity, organizations should be able to apply the practice to be a guideline, including empowering others to build increasing in quality and strong and sustainable corporate culture in Thailand’s society”.
And this is the journey of Ngern Tidlor, from day one until today, in creating a corporate culture that drives business success and enables employee happiness, personal progress, and sustained positive impact on other organizations and society.