A core part of employee engagement involves surfacing, analysing and steering workplace cultures, to drive productivity, profit, and positive change.
At the heart of every piece of work we do is a desire to understand an organisation’s culture and use that understanding to create a better world of work.
So, when we heard about HRZone’s Culture Pioneers initiative - a programme of events, educational resources and awards to help champion organisations’ commitment to culture - we were keen to get involved.
And it’s not just about the work we do for our clients. It’s also about our commitment to our own people and workplace, too. It’s no good telling others what to do to make their employee experience better if we don’t also practice what we preach.
As we take the pledge to #ExploreChange, and look forward to supporting HRZone’s Culture Pioneers initiative, we asked Jeremy Petty, CEO, and Lisa Hawksworth, director of culture and insights, what culture means to them and to scarlettabbott.
Why is culture a big focus now?
Jeremy: Put simply, it’s never been so important.
Culture fundamentally drives business outcomes, and your culture is the biggest enabler or barrier to making change happen. Without the insights to help you understand your culture, and the behaviours that influence it, you’re missing the vital component of the roadmap to take you forward.
Lisa, your approach to understanding culture is very academic and insights driven. How does this influence your work with organisations?
Lisa: It is academic, but it’s also practical. Simply put, building our approach based on academic research means we can put a robust framework around what you understand culture to be. It also means you can conduct research that is sound, and trusted – and use those frameworks and rigour to affect meaningful, and pragmatic, change.
What do you wish organisations understood about culture?
Lisa: It needs clarity. You can’t just nebulously talk about what you’d like your culture to be. If you do, there’ll be gaps and a lack of ownership. They also need to better understand the why. There are a myriad of issues facing organisations today. They need to ask themselves: culture, in service of what?
To leverage your culture, you need to understand where it is now, and use that understanding to map a clear path, with ownership, to evolve it in service of your organisation’s goals.
How is scarlettabbott ‘taking the pledge to #ExploreChange?
Jeremy: As an employee engagement consultancy, we’re extremely cognisant that we need to practice what we preach and we’re doubling down on our commitment to make a better world of work for everyone at scarlettabbott.
A big part of that is our focus on continuous learning and development. From the moment you join scarlettabbott you are supported with a comprehensive induction programme, mentoring, training opportunities, a clear career pathway and regular peer-to-peer learning opportunities – such as our Hive sessions - to share best practice.
We put you in charge of your career, giving you the autonomy to shape the direction of travel, and we’ve seen this lead to some fantastic journeys. But there’s always more we can do and one of our pledges is to continue to build out our L&D programme.
We’re also committed to supporting the wellbeing of our people and mental health is a key focus within that.
We support our people’s wellbeing through flexible working, a comprehensive employee assistance programme, open ‘ask me anything’ sessions with both our head of HR and myself, and a programme of wellbeing-focussed sessions with experts in the field of mental health, wellbeing and resilience.
We are looking to continue to grow this programme, expanding what we offer to our team over the coming 12 months.
Want to find out more about the Culture Pioneers initiative? We spoke with Managing Editor Becky Norman to find out more about HRZone’s ambitions.
