The Unspoken Power of Micro-Culture in Teams

Welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Vantage Circle.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Hi, Rashi. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining in. How are you doing today?

Rashi Ramani: I'm doing fully well here. How are you?

Sanjeevani Saikia: I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine. So, Rashi, before we dive into the main conversation, I'd love to get to know the person behind the perspective. Can you share your corporate journey so far with me and all our listeners?

Rashi Ramani: Absolutely. First of all, thanks to you and Vantage Circle for having me here to talk about my professional journey. I bring with me over 19 years of experience in human resources. I started my professional journey with a leading telecom company before moving into the financial services space. I was one of the founding team members at Care Health Insurance. I've been here for 14 years, grown through the ranks, and now I'm currently heading HR and People Practices across geographies in India. It's been an incredible journey of building high-performing teams and shaping culture, which is what we'll be talking about today.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Thank you for sharing your journey with us. Once again, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. With your permission, shall we dive into the topic of discussion today?

Rashi Ramani: Absolutely, Sanjeevani.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Great, let's begin. So, when we say micro-culture, what are we actually talking about? That's my very first question, because people talk about this a lot and not everyone is on the same page about what the concept actually means. So, what does micro-culture mean, and how is it different from the broader organizational culture that everyone keeps talking about, the one that's on mission statements or onboarding slides?

Rashi Ramani: Sanjeevani, the moment I got this topic, I was instantly curious to do this podcast, because micro-culture is relevant to any segment or business line, but it's all the more relevant to ours. The way we're spread today, with a diverse geographical footprint, multiple locations, multiple business lines, multiple partners and stakeholders, and employees spread across remote, urban, and rural areas, means micro-cultures within a culture are absolutely relevant and important to understand in today's context.

Now, coming back to the question. Within the broad organizational culture, there is a certain set of values and beliefs, and the different working style each team develops within that broader system is nothing but a micro-culture. Every team has its own way of interpreting and applying the company's values in day-to-day work. There's a broader value system that the organization holds, and around those values, each team or business line develops its own set of micro-values.

For instance, at Care Health Insurance, our organization is rooted in a strong culture of performance and customer-centricity. But we recognize that different teams express that differently. Technology might prioritize agility and experimentation, while the claims team might focus on speed and accuracy, while the larger objective remains driving performance and customer-centricity. These are the micro-cultures each team picks up and drives. From an overall perspective, micro-culture is a subset of the broader organizational culture.

Sanjeevani Saikia: So once we start noticing these cultural pockets, it makes me wonder, how do they shape the way we interact on a daily basis? Some teams love to interact and share ideas, while others might lean toward hierarchy or prefer working quietly, not necessarily in silos, but with less open sharing of ideas. So how does micro-culture really influence the way individuals communicate day to day?

Rashi Ramani: It definitely influences how a team interacts, communicates, or collaborates day to day. It's very team-specific. How we talk and work together every day is shaped by our team's micro-culture. It's like an unwritten guide. One team might prefer picking up the phone for updates even on important issues, while another team might prefer email for everything, even the smallest things. It comes down to how the team, and the overall culture, is built within that particular team. What works for one team might not work for another, but at the end of the day, it's about driving performance and the right behaviors within the team.

One important aspect here is how open a team is with feedback, and how it handles disagreements and tackles problems together. When a micro-culture encourages open conversation, you'll see a free flow of ideas that sparks new solutions and new ways of thinking. But if the micro-culture makes people hesitant to speak up or share ideas, you miss out on great ideas and relevant feedback.

Sanjeevani Saikia: I have a question I'm really curious to discover the answer to. Do these team cultures just naturally evolve based on who's in the room, or do leaders have a serious role to play in shaping them? Is it all organic dynamics, or is there a more intentional process at play when it comes to building or changing a micro-culture?

Rashi Ramani: Sometimes it just happens naturally, growing on its own based on who's on the team and the dynamics at play, a bit like a team's personality developing over time. But for a micro-culture to actually help achieve broader company goals and be a positive force, leaders and managers need to step in with a gentle guide that shapes the larger behaviors. Natural growth is great, but a little intentional shaping from leadership, showing the way, reinforcing good habits, and talking about what matters to the team, helps make sure micro-cultures stay productive and fit into the larger picture.

At Care Health Insurance, for example, we instill our values through different rewards, recognition, and training programs. We make sure our values are spoken about through different mechanisms and platforms, so they become part of the team's DNA. Teams display those values even when they have different working styles or ideologies as part of their micro-culture.

When micro-culture is done right, people feel more connected, more seen, and more valued, and it's hard not to notice the shift in energy. People are more engaged, and they go the extra mile.

Sanjeevani Saikia: So I'd like to understand how micro-culture really impacts overall employee engagement, performance, and retention. What impact does it have in these three areas?

Rashi Ramani: Micro-culture has a deeper impact on every team. When it's engaged, team performance is high. You'll always see behaviors within the team that instill a feeling of belonging. When team members feel a sense of belonging, when there's enough psychological safety, and when there's a shared purpose within the micro-culture, they're definitely more likely to be engaged, and the commitment and motivation levels of such teams are always high.

As an HR professional, I'm often asked about attrition rates and what makes teams stay with a company. There can be a number of reasons, but wherever there's a high level of engagement, meaning a high level of belonging in the team, retention rates are always higher. A strong micro-culture can definitely help boost a team's performance. Even large or complex tasks can be solved if there's a larger purpose the team is aligned to, which happens only through open communication. Employees are more likely to stay with an organization if they feel valued and connected within their immediate team. A positive micro-culture reduces stress, enhances job satisfaction, and ultimately creates a supportive environment where people thrive. Eventually, a strong micro-culture impacts engagement, performance, and retention rates.

Sanjeevani Saikia: I agree. When micro-culture is done right, it substantially reduces stress, increases job satisfaction, and creates a supportive work environment overall. Those are my three takeaways from your response. Now, we've talked about the good side of micro-culture in an organization, but I'm pretty sure there's a flip side as well. Not all micro-cultures are healthy. Some can be a little toxic, with gatekeeping, passive aggression, and other problems. And what's tricky is that these patterns don't really show up in broader employee engagement scores. So, Rashi, how can leaders identify potential toxic micro-cultures within teams, and once they identify one, what steps do they need to take to fix it?

Rashi Ramani: That's an absolutely important and relevant question. Within any environment, dysfunctional structures and cultures definitely exist. Wherever they do, they don't just hurt morale, they directly impact performance, retention, and ultimately the organization's environment. We look at different parameters to understand the pulse at the micro level, and we also equip our leaders with information to identify red flags, which could be high-attrition areas, a dip in performance, or too much office grapevine. Leaders can also identify these areas by simply encouraging one-to-one chats with team members, which reveal a lot about what's really going on.

The way we operate is very entrepreneurial. We give our teams and business leaders a lot of freedom to drive their business the way they want to, and with that comes a lot of encouragement around communication. Through one-to-one chats and communication, team members get a lot of information and insight into what's really going on. Even in our personal lives, most of what makes us who we are is unspoken, so personally and professionally, it's important to have the right conversation at the right time. At the end of the day, we're all human, and it helps to realign teams on shared values, create rituals that build trust, and invest in middle managers, who are often your real culture carriers. It also goes a long way to celebrate culture wins and recognize the people who talk about your culture and set an example others can learn from. It's very important to recognize and reward that too. Rome wasn't built in a day. These behaviors and cultures aren't built overnight. They're something you actively build every single day.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Yes, absolutely. There's one more thing I'd like to ask you. You mentioned rewarding and recognizing culture carriers. How exactly do HR teams and leaders in an organization do that? How do they recognize and reward the people who create a great working environment for themselves and the people around them?

Rashi Ramani: As I mentioned earlier, we talk about our broader values and culture across a lot of forums, and we recognize this value system through people's behaviors. We also have platforms where business leaders can nominate people who demonstrate these values and cultures, and can recognize them. At a broader level, we have annual rewards and platforms where we talk about our values and recognize employees who have demonstrated them. Because we talk so much about our value system across different forums, it gets drilled into the DNA of the organization, and business leaders talk to their people about it day to day, recognizing these behaviors wherever they see them through the platforms available.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Interesting, that's a great take. Rashi, I'm having a wonderful conversation with you, and I'm sure our listeners are loving this too. We've reached the end of today's episode, but I can't let you go without a final message for me and our listeners. I'm sure they'd be delighted to hear it from you. Also, let us know how we can reach out to you after this episode.

Rashi Ramani: My profile is out there, so anyone who wants to reach out to me can do so on LinkedIn. And a message to everyone: in today's changing landscape, one thing should be consistent. Consistency goes a long way and is far more powerful than brilliance that comes and goes. Whatever stage of your career you're in, whichever field you're in, staying connected and consistent is what matters most.

Sanjeevani Saikia: Staying consistent, I think that's a lovely message for our listeners. Rashi, thank you so much for joining in today and giving us your time. It's been a real pleasure having you on the show. Thank you once again, thanks a lot, Rashi.

Rashi Ramani: The pleasure is all mine, Sanjeevani. Thank you so much.