Your Business Culture

Is your workplace culture holding your business back?  Productivity lower than expected? People not thinking for themselves? Health and Safety takeup a bit patchy?

Here at AROI business advisors (with a return on investment!) we often find we have to work intensively with businesses to develop a healthier (and more profitable) workplace culture.

A recent Massey University survey (April 2025) has some surprising insights you need to know about.

·         88% of business CEO’s named “culture” as one of the top 3 drivers of value

·         95% believed that strengthening culture leads to performance, productivity, growth, and profitability

·         However, only 11% (yes, 11%!) said that their culture was fully aligned with their strategy – fully included in their plan

·         Many listed leadership capacity as a significant obstacle, not enough time, headspace or resources.

Many owners (and indeed researchers) assume that financial incentives will somehow “fix” poor culture. Sorry, it won’t work. Or not permanently. And risk creating expectations.  At AROI we help you develop strategies unique to your business, and hold your hand whilst implementing them!

In short: “Culture” comes from you – as owner, leader and role model for the behaviours you want in your business.  Some real-life examples:

1.      A construction worksite, all workers wearing full PPE, the boss comes on site with no, or incomplete PPE.  What does that say to the team?

2.      A factory with poor productivity – AROI tells the boss “when you walk past a workstation  that’s produced a good job, on time, tell the worker “well done, thanks for that”.  The co-director says “why should we do that? We pay them don’t we?”

3.      A restaurant where, when giving a “whole team” talk on the drivers of profitability, the chef spoke up and said “I’m not responsible for food costs or waste”.  Why? Because the owners hadn’t created the sense of “ownership” that’s essential to whole team performance.

4.      An engineering works where the boss is constantly looking over the workers’s shoulders – offering “advice” on how the job should be done.

So, how to avoid these pitfalls and start developing positive culture? First you need to know what’s happening in the minds of your team. And they won’t tell you the truth – you pay them!  At AROI we use a well proven confidential staff survey programme that digs up the truth, and this, combined with our confidential customer survey gives you a full 360° understanding of how your culture is working for you – or against you.

Once you have the full picture, you can set goals and targets and cement them into your plans – including culture, supervision, feedback systems to the staff, and progression and training plans.  Once planned, we recommend we facilitate  a full “team conference” to let your people know whats going on and what the future holds.  

Then we’ll work with you to actually implement the changes you want, step by step, and monitoring progress. After 12 months you’ll be amazed at the difference shown by a follow-up staff and customer survey!

Then into the future: YOU HAVE TO WALK THE TALK!

If instead you prefer to just “waddle the twaddle” maybe you should be in politics.