The Power of Culture for Organisational Transformation

The transformation team wrote internal blogs so people could follow the progress of the change and receive updates. They also created a new leadership framework to help guide leaders within the organisation and held workshops to help clarify what these leadership qualities look like in practice and how they could be achieved. After implementing these initiatives, the employee engagement survey showed that a few weeks later, over 80% of employees understood the new mission.

Communication is Key

Business leaders work together to create the company strategy, and then HR leaders are responsible for transforming this vision into an active culture. However, it is critical that business leaders remain involved throughout the process to ensure there is agreement about what the expected outcomes are, and that there is a shared language that people understand. One organization arranged for executive leaders to each sponsor a specific change topic, creating a sense of ownership and ensuring that they were being held accountable in actively driving change. Once an organization’s values have been agreed, these can then be integrated into areas such as hiring, performance management and talent development. Transparency through clear and frequent communication across the business, as well as the language used, is crucial to helping employees understand the journey and what it means to them. Change often brings a lot of uncertainty around job security and the future, so sharing as much information as is feasible can mitigate this sense of insecurity to a certain extent.

Monitoring Progress

Just as the engagement survey at the beginning of a transformation can help assess issues to be addressed, keeping a finger on the pulse throughout the journey is important in order to gain valuable insights into the success of the changes being introduced. The digital HR technology available and ‘pulse-taking’ tools make this easier than ever. Measuring employee engagement, performance and wellbeing helps to see where adjustments may need to be made before small issues grow into larger ones. It is also a great way to engage employees in bringing new ideas and suggestions to the table. Being able to quantitively measure the success of a transformation can give some very tangible data for those business leaders who want to see clear ROI.

Patience

As one HR leader said, you can’t change everything overnight and it’s also important to respect where employees have come from. Change is a marathon, not a sprint. Change should also not imply that everything before was ‘bad’, and leaders need to understand that in the case of a business transformation, some employees will be grieving the loss of what they have helped build in the past. Some things will take more time to implement, however there are also some quick wins that may help people adjust. It may not be possible to move into a shiny new building or make major renovations, however even some changes in office décor or furniture can help employees to make the mental shift towards the new culture faster. Implementing some immediate solutions that support the new cultural values – whether that is flexible working hours, health benefits (onsite yoga classes, gym memberships) or performance management incentives that reward behaviours can accelerate acceptance of a new cultural framework.

As Sushman Biswas says in his article on transformation in the HR Technologist, “Establishing the right people practices is essential for any business transformation effort, for ultimately the goal of any organizational transformation is to help people achieve more - build their capabilities, increase engagement, and develop more meaningful connections between purpose and business.”

• Culture Change
• Corporate Culture
• HR Analytics
• HR Transformation
• Big Data
• Organisational Culture