44 solent 250 roundtable


The Business Magazine and the Solent 250 sponsors invited senior business leaders to law firm Blake Morgan's Eastleigh offices to discuss....


A cultured approach to the workplace


Participants


Norman Armstrong: Partner, Grant Thornton


Nick Buckingham: Managing director, Colt International


John Eynon: Managing director, Import Services


Mike Gawthorne: CEO, Serocor (ARM) James Hawkeswood: Partner, Blake Morgan


David Moxon: Head of Apprenticeships Southampton Solent University


Anthony Reed: Area director corporate banking Hants and Dorset, HSBC


Lined up to debate: the Roundtable team Journalist John Burbedge reports the roundtable highlights


So, what's your workplace culture like nowadays?


David Murray began proceedings by giving a definition: “Corporate culture is rooted in an organisation's goals, strategies, structure and approaches to labour, customers, investors and the greater community.”


“But, those are just words. Isn't workplace culture more about people?” he suggested.


John Eynon agreed, pointing out that workplace culture was often formed around its business founder, but needs to evolve as the company grows or the founder moves on. “The trick is to keep the business going when change occurs. Has it got the right culture for its future? Does it need a benign dictator to come along or can those within the business take it on successfully.”


Eynon's retail distribution company Import Services has one office and three remote warehouses, which means, despite communications technology, that some people don't see each for weeks. “So, you can end up with silos, which can be useful, but need to be broken down.”


Traditional hierarchical management control is disappearing. “From the dominating working life that I grew up in, we now have one in which senior people have to stand back, but in the right way, and let their workforce do more in their workplace.”


Neil Stevenson suggested the workplace culture of Double H, despite being a family-owned plant nursery business, had been derived and maintained by its workforce. “Continuity has come more through key members of staff, some of whom have been with us for more than 30 years”.


Andrew Stembridge noted Chewton Glen's acquisition 10 years ago in highlighting the challenge of culture change. “We went from having our owners on site, to being owned by a large investment company with very different expectations. I have spent a lot of time trying to preserve, champion and translate the old culture feeling into achieving the corporate bottom line, which is king.”


“When you have an established successful business with the right folk together, perhaps you don't recognise how strong and positive your workplace culture really is.”


Business THE M A GA ZINE businessmag.co.uk TM


Trying to emulate a culture, or establish different ways of achieving an objective, can be “phenomenally harder than you can ever imagine” added Stembridge, particularly in large growing organisations where every replication could produce a dilution, or distancing from the core. “Whereas culture is virtually transferred by


Andrew Stembridge: Managing director, Chewton Glen Hotels


Neil Stevenson: Managing director, Double H Holdings


Adrian Went: Managing director, Griffon Hoverwork


David Murray: Managing director of The Business Magazine, chaired the discussion.


osmosis in smaller companies, you almost have to bottle it and individually hand it out in larger ones.”


Nick Buckingham also runs a family-owned business at Colt International. Having joined 18 months ago he instigated a major business improvement and cultural change programme, encouraging Colt's talented long-serving workforce to embrace internal change because of the need to be viewed differently externally.


“Every business is all about people, and we need them to improve our marketplace presence if we want to survive and grow successfully.”


Norman Armstrong THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JULY/AUGUST 2016


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