Creating a Tailored Cultural Review by Way of Focus Groups and Surveys

Over the past few years following the merger of two very successful financial institutions, this business has been working hard to amalgamate two organisations with different cultures, systems, and expectations.

People Solutions facilitated a tailored Cultural Review by way of focus groups and surveys.

Through the use of a third-party, and People Solution’s clear communications regarding confidentiality, this achieved the client’s expectation of gaining the trust of the employees. In turn, a strong response was achieved, helping People Solutions to provide targeted solutions and recommendations to the client.

This wealth management organisation is the result of a merger of two successful private wealth and financial investment businesses. With approximately 200 people working at their head office in Perth the business has shown exponential growth and success over the past few years. The organization is made up of a diverse workforce, of different departments, expertise, and businesses within businesses making for a unique and high-performing organisation. The Board of this organisation had agreed to an organisational culture review as an opportunity for all employees to provide feedback on the current culture, as well as opportunities for the future success of the culture and business.

Client Objective

Over the past few years, the business has been working hard to amalgamate two organisations with different ways of operating both with different cultures, systems, norms and expectations.

Key goal: run an organisational culture review to gain an in-depth understanding of the background, current state and ‘desired state’ of the operating culture.

Situation

Following the merger, this organisation sought to unify their culture, and to set a collective vision for the future. However, most of the efforts of leadership had been focussed on the financial, physical and structural processes.

For this organisation, the culture journey was framed as a transformational and ongoing process. This wasn’t going to be a single ‘tick and flick’ process but more so, the initial step toward a cultural change journey.

People Solutions were approached due to our experience in facilitating culture reviews, as well as our tailored approach to adapting our delivery style in order to suit the operational needs of this organisation. We facilitated a series of organisation-wide focus groups and a tailored online survey. All employees were invited to attend, participate and contribute.

Being a locally based business, People Solutions were able to create connections and establish rapport by meeting with the company’s leaders and their people. This was seen as an important factor for the business in order to create trust.

Challenge

It was fundamental for People Solutions to ensure that all employees felt comfortable sharing their perspectives confidentially and openly in both focus group and online survey sessions. This allowed us to capture the breadth and depth of qualitative and quantitative data.

Solution

People Solutions’ approach to culture reviews is tailored to each organisations’ needs and background. Our solutions, followed People Solutions’ structured process; ensuring all important areas of conducting a culture review were covered.

Step 1. Agree the Purpose

Initially, People Solutions liaised with this organisation’s Managing Director and HR Manager to understand what information has been gathered to date (from current perceptions, previous surveys or initiatives), the current organisational structure, and the dynamics and demographics.

This ensured the data gathered is interpreted in relation to the company’s business values, systems, processes and desired culture, but also allowed People Solutions to tailor questions to measure these aspects of culture.

Step 2: Communicate the Rationale

In conjunction with the Managing Director, People Solutions facilitated several face-to-face sessions with employees and Senior Leaders, introducing People Solutions, and outlining the rationale and objectives of the project. The most important part of these sessions was to communicate a commitment to maintaining confidentiality and anonymity.

This allowed for employees to question the process, and to begin thinking about their experience and perceptions of the current culture and how this can be improved.

Step 3: Conduct the Focus Groups and Online Survey

The focus groups were facilitated by our Senior Consultants and begun with a simple, open question as a means of starting the conversation, but then followed a structured format. Based upon ‘appreciative inquiry’ where the focus is to provide an affirmative, forward-thinking context for employees to think about the culture of the organisation.

For the focus groups, People Solutions ensured that a cross-section of the workforce participated and that each group consisted of functional and cross-functional teams as appropriate. Operational and management groups were kept separate.

Once the focus groups were completed, People Solutions themed and coded the data, allowing for the development of a targeted and meaningful online survey specific for this organisation.

Providing a blended approach of both online surveys and focus groups helped all employees to have their say and those that may not have been as comfortable speaking up in the focus group, had a chance to do so in the online survey.

All interview data was recorded by People Solutions’ Consultants and coded for analysis. All information was treated with the strictest confidence.

Result

An outstanding response rate was achieved for both focus groups and online surveys, with 60% of employees attending the focus groups, and 52% of employees responding to the online Survey.

From this, it was confident that the employees felt comfortable expressing their views and appreciated the opportunity to anonymously voice their feedback.

Our findings at the completion of the survey identified some clear areas of strength within the organisation including their;
• Strong commercial culture
• High-performing teams and individuals
• The growth, security, and the credibility of the organisation
• Enduring relationships with clients

Along with constructive recommendations for improvement such as:
• Desired clarity on the orgnaisations mission, vision and values.
• System review
• Desire for more company-wide collaboration
• Increase diversity
• Increase communication and visibility from senior leadership

Qualitative and quantitative comments were broken down into key themes for the business and from this People Solutions was able to provide targeted solutions and recommendations by means of quick wins, medium-goals and longer-term solutions.

These results were communicated in an in-depth report format and presented to the Managing Director, HR Manager and Board Members. People Solutions also created an infographic and condensed version for employees summarising the findings from the culture review which was circulated to the entire organisation from Senior Leadership.

Testimonial

People Solution’s involvement as a third party, and facilitating these culture review sessions was seen as highly beneficial in order to gain the trust of the employees which in turn resulted in strong response rates.

Since the culture review was delivered, this organisation had implemented recommendations and made changes, including setting their organisational vision, which was communicated to all employees via open forums. This organisation aims to continue the cultural journey; with the plan to facilitate another culture review in one year’s time in order to compare and see where the targeted recommendations have enhanced the culture, and areas where there still may require some ongoing focus.