Cultural Visioning and Transformation

P.P.Ramanujan, 11th August, 2016

The Client:

The client is an SMB headquartered in Chennai with pan India presence and employee strength of 75. They specialize in data security solutions with a vast clientele including top names in the industry.

Being a niche player in the technology space, employees are our client’s prime assets. Their skills and expertise are highly valued by their clients. The workforce is handpicked and intensively trained in a multitude of skills and competencies. Majority of the workforce is GenY.

Business Challenges:

The client was facing serious challenges in motivating and retaining their highly skilled young talent, despite offering competitive pay packages. Their employees were being swayed by the temptations from the multinational market.

The clients started voicing apprehensions about frequent change in relationship managers and support team members.

Root Cause Analysis:

It was at this stage that Antharicshaa was invited to develop an effective retention strategy. Our work culture dipstick analysis gave clear insights about the underlying factors for employee discontent and insecurity. The  first eye opener that the management experienced from our advisory was getting committed to create a workplace of Mutual Trust and Respect as a sustainable approach to employee engagement.

Cultural Modelling:

We began to  co-create  an ideal work culture model through a series of focused ideation workshops with Top Management and  senior employees. An ideal work culture model called “Mutual Trust and Respect Culture Model” (MTRCM) was developed based on the insights gained from the ideation workshops.

According to this model, each and every employee is an equal stakeholder in the organization’s mission to build and sustain a culture of mutual trust and respect. The ultimate objective was to provide a trustworthy, safe, inclusive, collaborative, sensitive, transparent and inspiring environment where employees feel valued and that there is everything inside the company to fulfill their aspirations.

Organization Health Assessment:

To take stock of the MTR quotient, we conducted a organization health survey. Interestingly, the results weren’t discouraging. However we had a long way to go in terms of employees feeling that they were part of a vibrant organization!

Cultural Transformation Road-map :

A cultural transformation road map was drawn out in collaboration with the company’s top management. The MTR cultural model was formally launched across the board with a big bang through a series of cross-functional outbound cultural visioning workshops hand crafted and anchored by our Principal Consultant, at a seaside resort. This emphasized the role of every single person in this mission. MTR became the company’s buzz word that day!

Soon MTR became an integral part of the leadership framework in our client’s Performance Management System. Managers were intensively trained by our consultants on various aspects of ensuring mutual trust and respect within their teams and were measured on objective metrics to assess their commitment and contribution to the cultural transformation. They were given continuous constructive feedback from time to time.

Positive Reinforcement:

Top management being a key stakeholder in this cultural transformation, HR has launched a new initiative called ‘You & CEO’ for building absolute trust among employees. As part of this initiative, the CEO will spend an hour in confidence with one employee every week over lunch/coffee to understand their personal background, life challenges, career aspirations, unique talents and any issues or grievances. This will be followed by specific actions as agreed with HR. The highlights about the individual will be showcased on the company’s intranet portal.

We shook hands with the client after reiterating them that their commitment to a vibrant culture should stay intact throughout the journey.

Result:

We had recently gone back to the client after a year of the cultural transformation to analyze the impact it has created on employee engagement. A formal organization health survey was conducted and the results were critically analyzed in comparison with the previous year’s ones. There has been a significant rise in employees’ trust levels over the top management and also the HR function. Managers had their bit of kudos and critics which has helped them in firming up their commitment to the purpose during the second year. Analysis of attrition data has also been supportive to the findings of the health survey.

Learning:

• Workforce stability has a significant impact on business stability, growth and customer retention for developing organizations, especially in the knowledge industry
• Competitive compensation continues to be a major influencing factor reagarding career decisions. However, GenY workforce places a lot of emphasis over conducive and inclusive work environment and quality of work content
• It is necessary and possible for even smallest of the organizations to attract and retain good talent by doing away with short-sighted transactional style of working  and aspiring for a vibrant work culture with long-term orientation
• With the conviction of top management, right scientific tools, expert advisory and a clear vision, it is possible for companies to create an inspiring workplace. Cost is never a constraining factor for this