How do others see your company culture?

It’s an important question to ask. Get the scoop with a Culture Spotlight.

There is a 91% chance that unhappy customers will go elsewhere for their business, and when dissatisfied, they’ll tell an average of 9 – 15 other people about their bad experience.   – Inc.

Understanding how others view your business can go a long way in identifying gaps or inconsistencies in your company culture. And that plays a huge part in the Customer Experience (CX) many organizations are investing in today. Inconsistencies that can drive away current or potential customers as well as prospective employees.

Culture Spotlights require very little time on your part while providing real insight into public perception that can positively or negatively influence potential customers and/or employees from engaging with your business.

Although high in value, they are low in cost, and afford you the data to make an informed decision about whether or not you’d like to pursue a more in-depth culture review through our Discovery process.

Here’s what a Culture Spotlight consists of:

• • A thorough review of publicly available reviews, comments, articles, promotions, that are easily accessible and anyone can find (like potential customers and/or prospective employees doing due diligence before engaging with your company).
  • A comparison between what shows up in our general external search and your company messaging, such as what appears on the website and in your customer-facing online material.
  • A report that provides an overview of what we found, including actual comments from reviews (when available).
  • What our findings suggest about your company culture – the good, the bad and the ugly. This includes points of potential alignment or misalignment in the culture and suggestions for strengthening what works and improving what doesn’t.
  • Recommended priorities for next steps.

See your company with a fresh perspective

A review of your company culture by an external partner offers the benefit of seeing it with a fresh perspective; something that is next to impossible for someone inside your company to do. Unless your company’s culture is already aligned, it’s likely that the way you view it is different than how your customers and employees experience your company. That’s what a Culture Spotlight is for – identifying those discrepancies in order to alleviate them.

Your full investment in a Culture Spotlight will be credited toward your comprehensive Discovery should you choose to move ahead within 90 days. After that, a sliding percentage will be credited for up to 6 months. Since sentiment can change quickly online, after 6 months has passed we’ll conduct a fresh review to ensure our analysis is based on current perceptions and information.

To see what’s included in a Culture Spotlight (with the exception of client-specific improvements and recommendations which are confidential), check out the samples on our Resources page.

While Culture Spotlights are ideal for companies with 50 or more employees, if you haven’t yet reached 50 people, that’s okay! Just give us a call and we’ll explore ways we can tailor our approach to best serve a company of your size.

Our process is simple. It always starts with EXPLORATION via a Culture Spotlight, and then, when warranted, DISCOVERY.

CULTURE SPOTLIGHTS

Culture Spotlights allow us to explore what others think about your company, which can uncover potentially obvious or more subtle misalignments in your culture. They require very little time on your part while allowing us to gain a general overview of public perceptions that can affect your Customer Experience (CX) initiatives and positively or negatively influence potential customers and/or employees from engaging with your business.

If things look clearly aligned, congratulations! That’s great confirmation for you that you’re on the right path and to keep doing what you’re doing.

However, if inconsistencies show up, then we can talk about the benefits of moving into the next stage with our Discovery process.

DISCOVERY

Discovery is an in-depth culture review by which we identify strengths and gaps between the existing culture and your vision and associated values as CEO, and also between the stated culture and actual behaviors, perceptions and attitudes.

Our Discovery process follows four steps: Dig, Assess, Report, Engage (D.A.R.E.).

Dig

This is where we dig deeply into your company’s culture.

We look at the bigger picture in terms of the collective mindset, norms, general perceptions of employees, and also drill down to understand various processes and practices – company-wide and between groups such as divisions, departments and teams.

We listen to stories, words and observe behaviors through a proprietary survey, on-site vists and 1:1 interviews with select employees, and also take a look at various metrics (if you have them) and documents.

We believe that the best way to understand the nuances of your company is to explore the different elements contributing to it. Because your organization is unique, the specifics of the Discovery will be designed once we’ve learned more about you and your business.

Whenever possible, we include the information gathered through the Culture Spotlight in our Dig, and will apply all or part of the cost of the Culture Spotlight to your Discovery, provided it is scheduled within 6 months of your Culture Spotlight delivery date.

Since public perception can change quickly, the information provided in a Culture Spotlight can grow stale after 6 months, so after that time, we would want to conduct a new one as a part of digging into your company’s culture to ensure you have the freshest, most accurate information available.

Assess & Report 

This is where we take what we have uncovered in the Dig to pinpoint the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in your culture based on your ideal.

We then lay it all out in a Blueprint which prioritizes an alignment plan along with ways to sustain that alignment as your company evolves and grows.

Engage

When you’re ready to take your newly analyzed culture for a spin, we’re there for you. Unlike most consulting firms, who step in and implement changes for you, perculcha prefers to take on an advisory role, helping you and your employees learn how to do this work yourselves. This puts you in the driver’s seat with us as the navigator, empowering your people to apply these approaches over and over and adapt them as your company evolves and grows.

If you decide that you’d rather we take the wheel and drive the changes, we’re happy to do it when explicitly requested.

Naturally you want to know what this is going to cost.

That’s a great question and that depends entirely on the specific needs of your company. Each company is as unique as its people, which is why we tailor our process for each and every client.

As for pricing, there are just too many variables to provide a standard pricing packages for these services but if you’re thinking it will be expensive, check out the independent research on our Resources page then consider the cost of doing nothing.

Company culture is much more than a retention issue

• Every aspect of a misaligned culture runs the risk of negatively impacting your employees and the experience of your customers. And when that happens, customers take their business elsewhere.
• Your best employees will become frustrated by an inconsistent and poorly managed work environment and will look for better opportunities elsewhere. And in today’s tight labor market, they’re likely to find them, costing you in turnover and training expenses as well as time.
• Unhappy employees experience higher absenteeism, more health issues, and less predictable behaviors that can negatively influence more productive, happier employees. And not just in the short term. Their influence will infect the Collective Mindset (the hidden engine behind culture), so even once they’ve left the company, a part of them will remain until direct action is taken to shift the culture.

Culture alignment is an investment in your company, and in your people. It’s more important than pouring money into technology or office space. It’s even more important than sales. Because none of those things matter if your culture and people aren’t aligned and operate inconsistently, disruptively and/or contrary to the values of the company.

Each business culture is different. Just like individual fingerprints — no two are exactly the same. We may find out that now isn’t the right time, or that your company culture is where you want it to be. But we won’t know any of that until we talk.