Knowing when an intervention is necessary
There’s no formula for the perfect company culture. A good company culture can feel elusive at times of stress, challenge and change within organisations.
Many leaders have been operating in environments of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity for several years and finding time to stop and reassess culture can feel indulgent. However, as we explored in our previous blog [link here] not having company culture as part of your overall strategy can be detrimental to talent acquisition, engagement, productivity and the success of any M&A.
So how do you know when to act?
From our experience of working across multiple sectors and with organisations large and small, here are the top 10 warning signs:
- Increasing employee turnover – and significantly differing rates across the business
- Difficulty attracting diverse talent
- Poor wellbeing within the business – employee burnout, absenteeism and even the sense that out of hours and weekend working is the expected nor,
- Busyness being seen as a badge of honour
- Negative customer and staff feedback
- Low engagement with pulse surveys and feedback mechanisms
- Attrition due to working culture
- Conflict between teams/leaders
- Low degree of trust between employees and leadership
It could be that your organisation is not suffering from any of the red flags mentioned above. However, if you are seeking to simply improve any of these factors such as employee turnover and satisfaction, then a culture intervention could be beneficial to your business.
At Up Rising, our team have many years of experience in delivering on culture change and have developed a methodology of culture intervention that works.
A company culture intervention is a journey
There is no end point to your culture journey (unfortunately!) – as it needs to grow and evolve as your business does.
At Up Rising we find it particularly rewarding to see the tangible impact following our work. In 2021, we concluded a culture change project for a technology business and over the period we worked together the Net Promoter Score increased from –66% to +29% – in a year.
Of course, the quantitative results only tell part of the story – the personal and professional changes that the individual leaders accomplished are truly what we are proud of. From improved wellbeing, promotion and new roles to better relationships and improved cross department collaboration.
As part of all our culture interventions we carry out in-depth interviews with leaders to understand what it is like to be a leader within the business, as well as holding focus groups with employees across the business. It is important to have open and honest conversations with employees, without a leader in the room to understand exactly what it is like working within their organisation and relate to any issues that might be making it hard for these individuals to do their job. As discussed in last week’s blog Understanding Company Culture and Assessing Your Own, Openness, honesty and communication are values intrinsic to developing and maintaining a positive company culture.
Our Managing Directors have the unique perspective of having been senior leaders in the past and ran businesses of their own and therefore, have a genuine understanding of the high-pressure environments leaders operate in, allowing us to drive impactful change (see next week’s blog Culture Case Study: Ve Global UK).
To find out more about an Up Rising culture intervention get in touch with us via the about page and in the meantime, follow us on LinkedIn to be notified of our next blog Culture Case Study: Ve Global UK.
