Challenge: A leading health fund engaged Stockwell Bretton to support the delivery of a cultural change program, commencing with two specific business groups and then extending to the broader organisation. Specifically, after receiving consistent feedback from employees, managers and customers through multiple mechanisms including engagement and feedback surveys, as well as direct and indirect feedback, the Executive identified some negative cultural attributes including unhealthy competition between two teams and within those teams, as well as negative perceptions and comments about other teams and members of the organisation. These teams felt they were the key contributors to the organisation, that their value should be recognised over and above that of other teams.

Approach: To assist the organisation change this culture, Stockwell Bretton designed a cultural intervention and implemented this via workshops with the two teams. The workshops were designed to enhance cultural awareness and provide participants with the tools and techniques to change organisational culture. The workshops provided participants with an understanding of what organisational culture is, how it develops, the influence it has on performance and morale for the immediate team, and the entire organisation. Participants worked collaboratively to define their current culture; identify their ‘dream state’ culture and analyse the barriers and enablers that prevent achievement of this culture. Based on this analysis participants were asked to consider and quantify their individual commitment to changing the current culture and working towards the ‘dream state’. Through effective facilitation, they identified solutions, actions, priorities and individual responsibilities for working towards this culture; and making incremental changes over time.

Result: Through these cultural awareness workshops, our team was able to provide staff with the knowledge and skills to improve their working environment. The knowledge transfer and ownership that participants gained provided the foundation to improve collaboration within and between teams. It also created the desire and confirmed the commitment to drive cultural change; with staff consciously undertaking activities to realign the organisation’s culture to promote an open and inclusive work environment; increasing overall staff morale.