In business, one thing will always prevail: a great culture.
From the CEO of the company right through to your team member in accounting, workplace culture has a massive influence on the success of a business. This also affects how adaptable employees are to change, stress, and hardship. There’s a big difference between performance based (constructive) culture and defensive based (ineffective) culture, and this could drastically cost your bottom line.
Performance based culture in the workplace leads to:
- Increased productivity
- Greater levels of employee engagement
- Increased morale
- Purposeful pursuits
- Lower turnover
- A collaborative approach between employees and teams.
Businesses are shaped by a combination of leaders and employees, and the relationship and dynamics between the two. Fundamentally, leaders need to set the tone for positive organisational culture however, if a majority of the team members are not invested, a negative, defensive focused culture will emerge. Below is an example of how this can be rectified.
A Case Study of Culture Enhancement
The Challenge
A very important, medium-sized Australian organisation had consistently been struggling with culture. Consequently, they were unable to offer a high quality of support and services to their client base and major stakeholders. They enlisted Veretis for help to reform their organisational culture.
The Solution
Our team outlined a number of steps to help re-brand, revitalise and increase the quality of outcomes for stakeholders. These steps included a change of name, a restructure, and the implementation of a range of new processes to ensure optimal organisational culture.
The “buy-in” and commitment of current staff was essential to the restructure and change to processes. The business also needed to focus on employing not necessarily the most competent performers; but instead find those with a personality that complemented the constructive culture the organisation was looking to implement and maintain.
‘Team Players’ were highly valued, as were those who exhibited high levels of emotional intelligence. These candidates consistently demonstrated a more innovative, stress tolerant, and adaptable approach.
Senior leaders of the ‘new’ organisation realised that consciously building leadership skills was an essential aspect of the company’s success. This also required effective balancing of their focus, energy and time.
Veretis’ solutions focused heavily on identifying the organisation’s goals, and subsequently helping to create a people-focused, productive, and resilient workforce. Our leadership development initiatives involved working with senior leaders to identify their strengths and growth areas by using 360-degree feedback.
Coaching and workshops by Veretis were also carried out through this process and focused on areas such as emotional intelligence. Improving emotional intelligence can help develop better stress resilience, ability to motivate others, and a better understanding of self.
Certain aspects of emotional intelligence were identified as “work areas”, and these areas formed the basis for leadership development plans. These plans provided goals and strategies to help to build the capabilities of individuals and teams going forward.
The Results
Since the start of Veretis’ work with the company, the outcomes from the program have been extremely positive. The organisation has seen high levels of engagement from team members as well as senior leadership.
A combination of increased confidence in the selection of candidates and subsequent selection of the correct individuals for the right roles has resulted in decreased turnover. This also helped find candidates who exhibited positive team dynamics, and quickly contributed to the performance of their team.
There has been a constructive and positive leadership transformation amongst senior participants, and there has been enhanced performance and improvement in employees’ capabilities, particularly leaders, throughout the company.
Key Elements for Success
The key elements that have resulted in success of the programs for the company to date has been:
- The commitment of senior leadership within the organisation to recognise the importance of, engage in, and implement Veretis’ suggestions and programs as well as a range of other important initiatives.
- The human resource function within the business seen as a ‘key partner’ for the success of the business moving forward
- A real partnership approach between the senior leadership team and Veretis has had real benefits for staff. A follow up and revisit of strategic and long-term approaches will be built upon over time.
- Regular commentary from staff on the thoroughness, experience, and expertise of Veretis denoted an effective program. Veretis’ ability to take high level psychological data and deliver it in a “real world” manner meant that the information was accessible, understandable, and constructive. You don’t need 10 years in the business to understand the jargon!
Veretis worked with the company to build constructive goals and identify areas of strength and improvement. As a result, this time of change and re-invigoration was beneficial to the entire company.
It is important to discuss culture with both leaders and employees to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. Veretis uses real data from the organisation to implement positive change, not just forcing staff to take “another pulse-check” survey for which they might never see the results.
Learn more about how Veretis improves business culture here. Get in touch today to see how we can build a custom solution for your business.
