By Susannah Gerner, client Services Director at Emperor
The second event in Emperor’s Culture Club, a series of events exploring the importance of culture in driving business success. Hear what our speakers covered at the event where they shared insights and practical advice on how to assess and define business culture and measure employee engagement.
Speakers included Emperor’s Head of Employee Communications Darryl Mead, guest Jess Brook, Senior People Scientist at Culture Amp, and Emperor’s Client Services Director, Susannah Gerner. They were followed by an engaging Q&A session with the audience, which included a discussion around how to maintain a consistent employer brand following a merger or acquisition.
Key takeaways from the session were:
Culture shapes an organisation
Culture is a critical strategic driver with several important factors moving it up the agenda. We highlighted six areas where culture plays a key role in shaping business performance; the new UK Corporate Governance Code requirements, attracting the right talent, creating a great place to work, driving performance, engaging investors and avoiding the front page. These are areas that organisations should review to understand how culture is helping or harming performance.
Measure what’s important to your business
Rather than looking at culture in its entirety, we recommend focusing in on specifics, measuring what is important to your business and how those things deliver your purpose, strategy and ambitions. That means identifying which aspects of your workplace and culture you might need to change, define priorities, then develop plans to change behaviours. That will give you plenty to measure and report on.
What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded gets repeated.
- John E. Jones
Turn employee feedback into action
Capturing the employee voice should not only inform leaders and the Board decision-making to shape business outcomes but also allow you to tap into all aspects of the employee experience. Understanding what’s important to employees, and taking action creates a more engaged team and a better place to work.
Grab hold of your culture
Most companies realise that culture is their one true source of competitive advantage. Almost everything else within a business is replicable. People make decisions, create products, deliver services and the brand promise. It’s not soft and fluffy, it’s something that needs to be built and managed with a specific purpose in mind. The companies that are disrupting their industries today are the ones who are putting their culture first.
Culture is your one true source of individuality. It is the foundation of all successful companies.
- Jess Brook, Senior People Scientist, Culture Amp
What next?
Company culture can sometimes feel like a difficult concept to grasp. The trick to being able to assess, define and measure is to break it down into its component parts: what is important to the company and employees. Once you understand your culture, there is then the opportunity to affect change. We will be looking at these next steps in the final session in our Culture Club series, ‘You’ve defined your culture, what next?’, taking place on 17 September 2019.
Find out more about the event here and register today.
If you’d like help to make sense of your organisational culture, understand how to shape it, and share it, or to receive a copy of the slides from the event, please get in touch with darryl.mead@emperor.works.
