I’ve been thinking a lot about Corporate Culture in Home Care
For the past few weeks, I’ve been deeply immersed in the final preparation for the start of school. As you may have heard, I recently accepted a position as Adjunct Instructor of Corporate Culture in the Master of Arts in Communication and Business Leadership at High Point University in High Point, NC.
High Point is positioned as “America’s Premier Life Skills University.” This new masters program is specifically designed for HPU Graduates who want to further develop their life and work skills as they prepare to enter corporate America after finishing their undergraduate degrees.
A Refresher on Corporate Culture
In our work with Home Care companies on corporate culture, we define “culture” as “The way we do things around here.”
There are many elements that affect the culture of a company. The four factors I’ve focused on in my work are:
- The leadership style of the CEO
- The core values that guide your decisions and actions
- The behavior you expect
- The behavior you permit.
Reviewing the Thought Leaders on Corporate Culture
Over the past forty years, there have been a handful of thought leaders who have been recognized as the experts in corporate culture. I went back into my library and pulled out some of the books I had devoured in my early days of studying culture.
Perhaps the premier thought leader on organizational culture was Dr. Edgar Schein, professor at MIT. He wrote one of the early books on this topic, and Organization Culture and Leadership is now in it’s fifth edition. In his model, he articulated three levels of elements that shaped culture:
- Artifacts – the visible organizational structures and processes
- Values – the strategies, goals, and philosophies declared and endorsed by the organization.
- Assumptions – the unconscious beliefs people within the organization hold to be true.
Two other thought leaders on corporate culture were Terence Deal and Allen Kennedy, and they described in detail in their book, Corporate Cultures: the Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life.
They said, “Culture has a powerful influence throughout an organization. It affects practically everything from who gets promoted and what decisions are made, to how employees dress. We think that culture has a major effect on the success of the business. A strong culture has almost always been the driving force behind continue success of American business.”
The Impact of Culture on Home Care Companies and their Leaders
As I have worked with hundreds of Home Care companies over the past three decades that want to grow their business, and with Home Care leaders who want to get ready for the future, I’ve made a very interesting observation. One of the significant differences between the companies at the median of the industry and those in the Top 5% is leaders who understand the principles of corporate culture, and who lead their teams in crafting a conscious, strong corporate culture.
There are 29,000 companies providing in-home care in America. The median annual revenue in 2024, according to the2025 HCP Benchmarking Study from Activated Insights was $2, 301,088. The companies at the 95th percentile had median annual revenue of $11,880, 204. And the companies in the Top 5% Mastermind Group of the Home Care CEO Forum had average annual revenue of $14,861,281. Corporate Culture played a huge role in those companies at the top of our industry.
As I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about corporate culture. And I have reaffirmed that corporate culture plays a huge role in the success and significance of the top companies in Home Care.
What are you doing to define and craft your company culture?
