WeWork Organizational Culture Overview
A documentary released by Hulu on April 1st 2021 provides an insight on WeWork organizational culture and its serious shortcomings under the leadership of co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann. At that time corporate culture at WeWork was notorious for ‘frat-boy’ culture, sexual abuse, motivational mantras and free beer. The co-working giant organized annual employee retreat on a remote island. The company engaged in tracking employees at mandatory, alcohol-fuelled company events and an onboarding process that made all new employees shout WeWork until red in the face.
New CEO, real estate veteran Sandeep Mathrani who took helm in February 2020 brought maturity and discipline into the company with direct implications on organizational culture of WeWork. Dubbed as ‘anti-Adam Neumann’ the new CEO was quick to put a stop at extravagant company events and cut costs in many other ways. Under the new leadership the global flexible workspace provider has committed to zero tolerance to discrimination and abuse at workplace in any form and these changes are more than welcomed by stakeholders.
Mr. Mathrani is committed to change the important components of WeWork organizational culture in the following ways:
Values. Mathrani specified the following values to be central for the co-working and office space operator:
- Do the right thing
- Strive to be better, together
- Be entrepreneurial
- Give gratitude
- Be human, be kind
Attitudes. New CEO expects mature and more responsible attitude towards the work from employees at all levels.
Norms and expectations. Employees are expected to work hard, deliver results and be considerate towards their co-workers. Discrimination and abuse is no longer tolerated at the co-working giant.
Rituals, symbols and routines. Extravagant rituals such as shouting WeWork at company gatherings, ordering coffee from WeWork’s in-house barista and many others popular under Adam Neumann were put to stop permanently.
WeWork Inc. Report contains the above analysis of WeWork organizational culture. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis, Ansoff Matrix and McKinsey 7S Model on WeWork. Moreover, the report contains analyses of WeWork leadership, organizational structure and business strategy. The report also comprises discussions of WeWork marketing strategy, ecosystem and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility.
