next levels down, the future leader layers still embody the core beliefs and attitudes.” If they don’t, it starts to show in company performance and staff churn, he suggested.
Griffiths: “You have to build foundations and company values for a culture, but it does all come from the top.” The four directors had drawn up 20 ‘company values’ and asked the staff to decide the key ones. They had selected innovation, making a difference, agility, partnerships.
Mehran Yadegari
Sykes revealed a study detail that he had read in The Wall Street Journal: “Apparently, 93% of employees who stay after an employer’s counter-offer, leave within 18 months.”
Pasco: “It actually shows they’ve moved into a mindset where they are prepared to accept and explore different things.”
Poole: “If somebody is going, money may well be a factor and you can counter-offer, but it’s not usually the key reason. You can try to convince people to stay by saying you will change, but they know you can’t really change things quickly or enough for them to be satisfied.”
Griffiths: “Isn’t there also business research that says most people leave because of their manager or a member of their team?”
Creating a culture that works
“Apart from all the general challenges of my business, the thing that keeps me awake is how to create a business that people want to work for,” said Bryn Aldridge of Drivenlower (2014 TVBMA Best Use of Technology finalist).
“People spend an awful lot of their waking days at work, and need to have a great time there, feel satisfied and personally recognised. That aspect has to come from the top. You can’t create an embedded culture if the people at the top don’t live that culture.”
Ian Morrin of Clarify, a firm of 40 staff, agreed, but pointed out that culture and employee engagement also had to run throughout all layers of the business, to enable it to develop and upscale. “It becomes critical that the
David Brookes
Murray pointed out that truly embedded company culture is what happens when the directors are not around.
Have you got a people officer?
Employee engagement was something Volume invested in heavily, said Sykes, and since appointing a chief people officer to concentrate on that “our attrition rate has been much better, we are more attractive as an employer brand, and it is reflected in our business performance”.
FISCAL Technologies, with fewer than 50 staff, employed a people and culture manager nine months ago, Griffiths revealed. “She’s incredible. She takes a lot of what the directors are doing and translates that in a culture-enhancing way.”
Pasco of psychometric assessment specialist Thomas International agreed: “You can’t under-estimate the value of people officers. We work with them on a day-to-day basis and they can make the difference between whether staff stay or go.”
Sean Taylor THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2015
Morrin explained that Clarify (2014 TVBMA SME of the Year finalist) does not have a ‘head of people’ but it has recently appointed a head of learning and development who will be responsible for people and culture.
“We now live by those. In fact we have an acronym: ‘I’m AP!’ We are all now Fiscalites, and there are lots of little things we can do to build that Fiscalite culture.
“Culture is key, but trying to choose the right people to come into your organisation is the biggest dilemma.”
tvbma roundtable THAMES VALLEY
MAGAZINE
BUSINESS AWARDS 2015
Do you actually know what your culture is?
Defining a company’s actual culture was hugely important, said Yadegari: “If it’s not defined in the right way, you can end up taking on the wrong people, which is where problems can start.”
“It’s a retention issue too,” added HMT’s Thomson. “If people don’t get your culture they won’t stay, no matter what you pay them.”
Poole stressed that how culture is defined and implemented is important because the company will recruit and retain to it. “I see many businesses where the owners think the culture is X and it is actually Y. You don’t want to be recruiting to a culture that doesn’t actually exist.”
He also noted that young fast-growing companies often had difficulty in controlling corporate culture. “You can try to shape it, but it will be what it will be. There will come a time, however, later as a larger business, when you have to define and document your culture.”
Retention was important, said Yadegari, but a certain level of churn is not a bad thing. “You have to have ‘glue’ – a range of good individuals who will stay with the company – but then understand and accept that Generation Y may bring fresh ideas, and move on.”
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Simon Pasco Boosting the local talent pot
Robin Barnes of TVBMA sponsor NatWest is also a private-sector representative of the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership: “The LEP is aware of these employment issues and is trying to focus attention on growing the local pot of potential talent . London may be a draw, but if we could just get Generation Y, which likes moving
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