Our objective with the Culture Excellence Assessment is to provide companies with data – data that gives them an overview where their culture is and what their strengths and weaknesses are. We provide a vast amount of information but of course, it is up to each individual company as to what they choose to do with that data. Likewise, those decisions will depend on many things, be they internal KPIs, external pressures or something else entirely.
However, a few things are important to understand when we want to improve on a company culture.
To begin with – don’t try and change everything at once. Focus on the most urgent issues first and create concrete initiatives that will help you improve.
Broadly speaking, the first thing to do when starting a new initiative is to make sure that it doesn’t cause conflicting messages or overlaps with something already running. This is especially the case where different departments or sites are independently doing their own thing and it isn’t communicated well enough.
Keep in mind, that it is important to involve key people in your organisation when you are working on cultural improvements in any given area. Hold work-shops, brain storm, come up with solutions to the most pressing problems and appoint key people to be the champions of change. Someone that others can go to for ideas, support or just inspiration.
Another pitfall to watch out for when implementing change - even a truly excellent initiative everyone’s onboard with - is to follow it through and make sure that change is embedded in the organisation. You want new activities to become a habit, so that when new members of staff join they will see it as “the way things are just done”. This is an absolutely crucial step that often is overlooked. Only something that is embedded in the culture of an organisation, becomes a permanent fixture of it.
Finally – remember it takes time to change and improve your company culture. Usually, when we do the assessment the second year what we want to see is companies maintaining good practices and improving in a few, select areas. Big jumps are very, very rare and even if they do happen, they can become difficult to maintain. As with all things in life consistency is key – but we are here to help with ideas and support you along the way.