Workplace Culture and Team Development – Inclusive Process

The Client

A Senior Manager responsible for a business unit of approximately 50 staff undertaking compliance work for external customers working from multiple sites.

The Brief

Senior management changes and ‘a fresh set of eyes’ resulted in a renewed focus on expectations regarding workplace standards and conduct.  This had led to several workplace investigations conducted independently and leading to multiple changes across the business unit including staff turnover and structural changes affecting teams.   

Staff had experienced an extended period of uncertainty and workplace disruptions impacting across teams.   A period of difficult change had created a strong foundation to better enable the unit to address new and increasing business demands.

Leaders were seeking expert consulting advice and support to build and continue to develop the newly reset workplace and team culture.  An inclusive approach, engaging with all staff, that provided an opportunity both to acknowledge and learn from recent events, and to build for the future was sought.

Our Response

HR Advantage worked closely with the Unit manager to frame, design and facilitate a workplace and team culture project with these key elements:

• high level management sponsorship and support
• a clear stepped process to ‘take stock’ and continue to shape the culture for the future
• work with the leadership team to reflect on experiences and learnings, and to provide advice and support for the Unit’s leadership team regarding how to engage with staff to acknowledge disruptions and consider improvements.  This involved facilitated workshop style meetings and providing inputs to key messaging and communications
• independently facilitating focus groups to get direct staff feedback and inputs on improvement suggestions
• working with the Unit manager and leaders to comprehensively process staff feedback and  then to develop a framework for leaders to directly consult with staff on improvement suggestions
• advice on the development of an action plan to implement and follow through.

The Results

Our work on the project furthered the development of a cohesive leadership team working on cultural issues across the Unit (and not only within individual teams).  A by product in this process was that the next step was taken to raise the bar on leadership collaboration and practices.

Staff feedback about the project and the focus groups to the Unit manager was very positive.  Staff felt they had had a say and been listened to.  Acknowledgement of changes to date as well as a future focus was appreciated.

An action plan was finalised, owned and led by the leadership team which reflected key issues of importance identified both through staff consultations and by the leadership team.  The Unit manager fed back that he felt well supported throughout the project by our involvement.

The project was viewed by the Unit manager as having provided a very strong springboard for the next stage of development of the workplace and team culture, complementing strong and improving performance outcomes of the Unit.