5 ways to transform company culture

How to ensure your company culture stays on-point

Sometimes it feels impossible to pinpoint or put into words other than ‘vibe’, but every organisation has a culture.

You can define a company’s culture by thinking about the actions and behaviours of its people. How do employees treat each other? How do they talk about their customers? What’s the longest-running office in-joke? It’s different for every company, but you can always identify the behaviours that define a company culture if you look hard enough.

What is company culture?

Company culture affects how a business operates, adapts to change and succeeds. If it’s time to improve company culture for the good of the organisation and its people, the good news is that it’s not impossible! By transforming company culture from the inside, you’ll discover a wealth of benefits that are much more tangible than simply ‘vibe’.

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Importantly, you’ll see how a positive company culture ends up creating a more inclusive working environment for all. This in turn increases employee satisfaction and happiness – boosting people’s engagement in their work, and maintaining employee retention. A refreshed company culture can also help with productivity: after all, happy employees will always feel more encouraged to work hard. 💪

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Here are 5 ways to make sure YOUR company culture is ship-shape.

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‍1. Figure out your current culture 🤔

Yes that’s right: you need to check the temperature across your organisation. Take time to define your purpose, values and behaviours so they can help support your organisational transformation. Roll out surveys, organise focus groups and gather as much data as you can to help build a clear picture of where you are, and where you want to be going. This is exactly how Unilever Brazil comprehensively transformed their culture in the early 2000’s, leading to improved revenue from 3% in 2008 to 14% by 2010, and the company’s cultural entropy score falling from 37% to 10%.

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2. Engage everybody 🙋

Transforming company culture isn’t just about stakeholder buy-in – it requires investment and commitment from everyone, from the leadership team to the latest hire. Your execs need to look at current company behaviours, and then forecast how they would change and adapt if your company were at the top of its game. Equally important is to create a safe space for employees to provide feedback on the change underway. Recognising teams that are working hard and performing well is also important, so ensure your rewarding strategy is robust with plenty of opportunities for meaningful gifting - something we can help with. 🎁

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‍3. Ensure your strategy and business goals match 🧩

Cultural transformation should improve your bottom line, rather than distract from it. For example, when Japanese information company Fujitsu repositioned their Environmental Contribution Awards, which were launched in 1995, and opened them up to all employees as the Sustainability Contribution Awards, entries and subsequent increased significantly – helping them meet a business as well as a cultural target.

To ensure your strategy and business goals match, map out an achievable set of goals which are clearly understood by all, actionable and can be measured. You’ll find that change requires extensive employee engagement, which in turn is good for business.

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4. Always. Be. Tracking 📈

It’s important to create a comprehensive line of sight from the beginning to the end of the transformation process. After defining your trajectory, it must be regularly highlighted to maintain engagement throughout the cultural transformation. Track your progress with regular employee and team check-ins, milestone celebrations, and taking time to measure successes at every step.

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‍5. Stay patient 🧘

Transforming culture takes time. You’re looking to create long-term change of a wide variety of factors that define a workplace – that’s a lot of moving parts! Don’t expect overnight transformation, but if you have a strategy in place with a realistic timeframe then you’ll always have a focal point to look forward to. Company-wide buy-in is key to your success, as well as tracking your progress along the way. It’s a demanding process, but it’s possible – and you’ll find it highly rewarding for your company as well as each and every employee.