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Supporting FTSE250 Growth by Aligning Culture with Ambition

A fast-growing business with ambitious plans. 

2.5x

more likely to recommend MAB as a place to work

83%

improvement to communication (internal NPS)

94%

of employees feel they fully understand the Mission, Vision and DNA

Winner

at the Business Culture Leadership Award

The challenge

Over the last few years our client had gone through a period of significant growth, almost doubling the size of their team, and had more ambitious growth targets in their sights. But as they grew, they were finding a cultural disconnect between different teams and groups of employees, and they needed help aligning everyone on the same page.

In order for our client to continue growing as planned, they needed to make sure that everyone in the organisation – from the employees who had been with the business from the start to the new recruits who had joined in the last few years – was pulling together as one company.

They needed to define and embed a new set of values and behaviours across all teams, one that:

All with the end goal of becoming FTSE250 fit. 

The solution

Our work followed our award-winning 3 stage culture change methodolgy, with the embedding journey currently underway. 


The process

Delivered through our award-winning 3-stage methodology:

Insight

The first step in the journey towards our client’s new culture was understanding the culture they currently had – not only what needed to change, but also what elements were working well.

After reviewing the results of the company’s most recent engagement survey and Knight Index, we set to work speaking to employees from across the entire organisation. These conversations took place in a few different forms:

  • A tailored, all-staff survey based on our Culture Consultancy Organisation Culture AssessmentTM, including a blend of multiple choice and open questions.
  • Focus groups with employees that drew on the insights gathered from the survey and explored new ways of working, collaboration, empowerment, processes and governance, leadership and involvement in decision making.
  • Both 1:1 and group interviews with senior managers, including all members of the executive leadership team.

 

What emerged from the Insight stage was a mixed perception about the culture, with many strengths of the existing culture uncovered, but with some of these at risk of erosion unless attention was paid to them.

At the end of this phase, we delivered an executive team debrief workshop to concluded on the findings and agree on the strategic imperatives.

Design

Once we had a detailed and accurate picture of our client’s current cultural setting, the next step was to design a way forward that kept hold of what was already working well while addressing the risks and opportunities.

We started out by defining a refreshed vision and set of values, while recognising that the company’s core purpose didn’t need to change. With strategic guidance from the senior leadership team, we used the employee forum to dig into the core sentiments of what the business stood for, then developed a new set values. These values were developed by the employee forum with input from executive and senior leadership, and the draft values were socialised with a wider group of employees to seek feedback before being finalised.

Once the company’s four refreshed values were concluded, we then used them as the basis for a full behavioural competency framework. This framework was designed to give meaningful guidance on how everyone should behave when performing their roles. This would unlock opportunities for improving talent attraction, recruitment, performance management and development.

new end-to-end performance management approach was developed which incorporated the behaviour framework. To support this, we developed an introduction to the behavioural framework module for managers and colleagues, that would be used as an integral part of implementing the approach.

We designed and co-delivered a launch event for the company’s new culture. This event helped to set our client’s new culture, behaviours and values within the company’s wider narrative, educating and engaging employees on what the culture means to them on a day-to-day basis through immersive activities.

Lastly, we developed a cultural dashboard to allow the leaders to measure the culture shift against specific people, culture and business metrics, and ran a full culture survey after the launch to assess the progress of the culture journey so far. This strategic culture dashboard is being used to monitor and guide the culture change as part of Business as Usual.

Embed

The embedding phase of our work with our client continues. This part of the culture project includes:

  • Lumina SparkTM profiling rolled out across the entire organisation, to help everyone with improving communication, relationships and collaboration.
  • leadership development programme to ensure leaders and managers have the skills they need to drive the culture change forward.
  • Development and support for all employees to help them take ownership of their performance management and development.
  • Team-based embedding workshops facilitated by leaders and managers, to enable teams to improve ways of working in line with the values and behaviours, ensuring the ownership for making the new culture stick resides with everyone.

The result

Whilst the embedding continues, our client is already seeing the positive results of their culture change work. With everyone aligned on their growth ambitions, they have since become a FTSE 250 company. Meanwhile, their ENPS score has risen to +49 and, based on the latest dashboard, there is high ‘consistency’ in adoption of the values in day to day working practices,  but still further potential to embed. 

98 % say “I am proud to tell people I work there”, and 97% “I would recommend the company to others as a good place to work”. Voluntary staff turnover is at 5.4% ; this is 23 percentage points lower than the sector average.

Gender balance has shifted significantly 70:30 to 58:42 in 2024, outperforming the sector average of 72:28, demonstrating the commitment to diversity and inclusion.

On first Investors in People assessment,  a GOLD standard was awarded – a brilliant result as <1 in 3 globally accredited organisations achieve Gold status, and most after multiple accreditations not on first assessment.

Overall communication is now more open and personal, and employee involvement has flourished, for example staff input shaped the new head office’s name, road name, and even furniture choices.

Working with Culture Consultancy has been an exceptional experience for myself and my team. Their approach and style of support have been consistently professional and personable. Their ability to understand our unique challenges and provide targeted solutions has been invaluable to us. Their delivery has exceeded our expectations.  Culture Consultancy stands out for their exceptional support, impactful delivery, and unwavering commitment to our success. Their contributions have been a key factor in our achievements, and I highly recommend their services to any organisation seeking to enhance their culture and performance.

Kate M

Senior Client Partner

Ready to turn culture into your competitive advantage?

Ready to turn culture into your competitive advantage?

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