Culture and engagement

The power of a strong culture

We help organisations grow a culture where people are engaged, feel valued and deliver exceptional results. Creating bespoke solutions that reflect your ambitions and context.

With decades of experience, we help people realise that culture is simply ‘the way we do things around here’ – so they have the power to achieve rapid change.

We don’t have off-the-shelf products that we try to fit our clients into. Instead, our starting point is to recognise that every organisation is unique and develop a partnership that will make the biggest difference.

All organisations are different, with their own unique strengths and areas for development.

Common challenges that organisations come to us to address include a desire for:

Increased collaboration (breaking down silos)
Ownership and pro-activity (stepping up to take action without waiting to be told what to do)
A willingness and appetite for change (challenging the belief that ‘it has to be done this way because it always has’)
Innovation and agility
Dealing with day to day conflicts so they are actually addressed (rather than ignore them for fear of making things worse – in the vain hope they will go away)
Diversity and inclusion (recognising the untapped resource and performance improvements to be gained through a culture where everybody is able to deliver their full value)

Inevitably, engagement and the way people talk, think and behave have a profound impact on an organisation’s performance. Ways of working that may have delivered good results in the past need to evolve to match changes in technology, a global market and rising customer expectations.

We work in partnership, engaging people across your organisation to reflect on the culture needed for success. Helping them understand the role that each of us plays to perpetuate or change culture can transform business results.

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Why us?

Our starting point is to understand what makes your culture unique and valuable – establish what must NOT change.

Many people have had bad experiences of ‘culture change programmes’ because these programmes create the impression that ‘everything we do now is wrong’ – that is not true. Your success to date has been built on the current culture. We can be allergic to ‘culture change programmes’ because we feel like they are being ‘done to us’.

Our approach is to engage people from across the organisation and empower them to be a part of the change needed.

Working with senior leaders: We work with them to get them to paint a picture of the future. They need to make the case for change – what are their ambitions and what ways of working are needed to succeed? How do they tell this story in a way that is engaging and exciting to create a ‘pull’ for their people?
Engaging with a diverse group of people: They then act as catalysts for change or ambassadors for new ways of working. This approach is often highly effective and the change agents benefit through their personal development and take the lead by bringing their colleagues into the conversation.
Creating engaging communications: We devise innovative and thought provoking communications strategies to generate engagement and create a buzz.

Challenging the norm: Part of the challenge is to ensure that senior leaders hearing how their people are feeling. We love to create dialogue between all levels of an organisation, helping CEOs to be approachable so their people tell them how it is, not what they think they want to hear.
Trusting and empowering employees: If we want people to take the lead and bring a new culture to life we need to trust them with the challenge and empower them to make decisions on their day to day activities. This is not blindly abandoning responsibility but investing in relationships over time.

SOME OF THE SERVICES WE OFFER

Culture assessment and employee surveys to give everyone the opportunity to reflect on their culture

Employee engagement workshops to build pro-activity and ownership

Team development for engagement and to role model culture change

Executive support and coaching – people follow their leaders’ actions (not their words), so we coach senior leaders to visibly role model change

Communication strategy to encourage a dialogue on change, promote collective ownership for culture and signpost evidence that change is happening

Conflict resolution – we all have bad hair days. How leaders respond to ‘non-compliance’ will determine if people believe that the change is real.

Developing management tool kits with improved recruitment, induction and performance management processes

Post M & A integration, to establish one culture – unifying IT systems will not in itself deliver the benefits in the business case

Organisational design, managing reorganisations, formal consultations and developing HR policies and processes that are aligned to the changes and help to embed new practices.

What our clients say about us

Robert Holzberger, Operations Director, Victoria Miro Gallery

“I highly recommend People Business for HR support for any business that requires professional, personable and up-to-date HR advice and assistance. People Business has been central to our HR needs over the last 10 years. As Victoria Miro doesn’t have a dedicated HR professional, I rely on People Business to help us through complex employee situations and provide contractual advice. Having them on call is reassuring and has worked well for our company. The HR Development and Mentoring Programme also enabled me to establish some important HR fundamentals at the Gallery.

The People Business team are incredibly professional yet personal, and their knowledge of employment law and advice is invaluable. I can’t recommend People Business highly enough.”

Victoria Miro Gallery

Robert Holzberger, Operations Director

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