Culture Shift works to support organisations in addressing culture-damaging behaviours including bullying, harassment (general harassment, sexual harassment and harassment related to protected characteristics), discrimination, domestic abuse and discrimination.
Speaking to hundreds of organisations, we’ve seen what works to help people understand what unacceptable behaviours are, what support is available and what resolution options they can access if they witness or experience such behaviours.
Through our online Report + Support™ tool we’ve helped organisations to reach over 2 million employees and students. Our platforms receive over 20,000 reports of culture-damaging behaviours each year, which enables organisations to be both responsive and preventative in their approach to changing cultures.
To help organisations to understand the progress they are making and to guide improvements we have created the Culture Shift Maturity Model which identifies 8 stages an organisation can be at in their journey to address culture-damaging behaviours.
The 8 Maturity Model Stages
Below are the details of the eight stages in the Culture Shift Maturity Model. We can evaluate which stage your organisation is at and make recommendations for improvements. If you are an existing Culture Shift partner, contact your customer success manager. If you are interested in working with Culture Shift and would like to book an evaluation, contact us today.
Pre-contemplation
Your organisation has yet to consider its culture management strategy.
A lack of reporting likely means you’re unable to say with certainty the root cause of the cultural issues you’re facing, the symptoms of these problems are manifesting as poor commercial performance, ongoing issues with burnout and possible trauma, high staff turnover, and grievances left to fester. Due to a lack of resources or intent, there is near to no action within the organisation to address cultural challenges. Organisations in the pre-contemplation stage are at the highest risk of attrition, increased costs through absenteeism or presenteeism, or being taken to tribunal.
Contemplation
Your organisation is starting to consider its culture management strategy.
A lack of reporting likely means you’re unable to say with certainty the root cause of the cultural issues you’re facing, but the symptoms of these problems are manifesting as poor commercial performance, ongoing issues with burnout and possible trauma, high staff turnover, and grievances left to fester. Either due to a lack of resources or lack of intent, there is little action happening within the organisation to address cultural challenges. What action is happening is entirely reactive. Organisations in the contemplation stage are still at risk of attrition, increased costs through absenteeism or presenteeism or being taken to tribunal.
Determination
Your organisation is seeing some signs of poor culture, and although you have the intention to take action, you likely lack either the insight to build a business case or the support throughout the business to create meaningful change.
Whilst you may be investing in some culture work, for example, training employees, or improving processes, these aren’t guided by strategy or effectively addressing known issues. You’re at risk of implementing ineffective initiatives leading to low morale, attrition, increased costs through absenteeism or presenteeism, or being taken to tribunal.
Action
Your organisation is doing some good work addressing cultural issues and improving employee experience and performance.
You’re somewhat aware of the behaviours happening across your organisation that can impact culture; however, seeing this at an aggregated level is still a challenge.
There is room for improvement in how you monitor, manage and assess data over time, and in how you use that insight to inform long-term strategic action. There is likely a lack of a whole-organisation approach or innovation when it comes to culture. You’re at risk of implementing ineffective initiatives or spending a lot of resources on firefighting rather than prevention.
Maintenance
Your organisation has been implementing culture change initiatives, such as training, reporting and enhanced support for more than 12 months with little to no significant changes or improvements measured in this time.
While you’ve invested in these initiatives, they have been underutilised or ineffectively rolled out. Reduced resources and/or a change in strategic approach may be hindering progress against initial objectives.
The initiatives are delivered in an organisational silo with little to no continued interest from senior leadership or wider stakeholders.
You’re at risk of losing any previous progress made, unable to demonstrate the benefits of initiatives undertaken, which can lead to a decline in trust and engagement.
Promising practice
Your organisation is doing positive work to improve and maintain a healthy culture. You have a clear understanding of what culture-based challenges you face and are delivering initiatives to address them.
You’re confident that at least a subset of your organisation will inform you of culture-damaging behaviours they witness or experience, and you have the resources to take action.
There might be some areas holding you back, such as senior leadership buy-in, budget, and data maturity. To move forward, you’re seeking collaboration, support or inspiration from other organisations or consultants.
Leading practice
Your organisation can confidently demonstrate how you are improving your organisational culture.
You have delivered and publicly spoken about activities and initiatives which have successfully helped you to address unacceptable behaviours.
You have senior leadership buy-in with a whole organisation approach to addressing these issues.
You have sustained effective operational practices for consecutive years across support and resolution services. You continue to make improvements through research and innovation.
You implement successful initiatives that you can demonstrate are preventing culture-damaging behaviours from taking place.
You’ve seen a reduction in issues such as absenteeism, presenteeism and matters going to employment tribunal.
Relapse
Your organisation has previously engaged in initiatives to build trust amongst your people, encouraging them to speak up, and take action to prevent harassment and increase belonging.
However, for one or more reasons, your activity in this area has stopped or significantly slowed down. This could be due to a change in leadership, shifting organisational priorities, a reduction of resources, or the loss of a key stakeholder or employee. You have the intention to resume activity but need support in where to restart.
Organisations assessed at this stage will have previously been considered leading or promising practice and have faltered or have never successfully implemented their launch/action stage commitments.
How We Assess Your Stage
Culture Shift can support you in identifying which stage in the maturity model your organisation is and make recommendations for improvements that you can make.
Change Readiness – Through our Culture Clinics, our new business team will meet with organisations that are interested in partnering with us. Through a detailed discussion about your current organisational approach to addressing bullying and harassment, we’ll determine the current stage you are at and make recommendations for how to improve.
Implementation – During onboarding with our platform, we will assess which stage you are at and give guidance on how to start or boost your organisation’s cultural transformation journey.
Impact Evaluation – Every partner organisation is offered an evaluation annually (once they have been live for 12 months) to understand where they sit in the maturity model. To make this assessment, we collect a series of information through internal processes and conversations with you. The evaluation has 6 themes, each of which has several topics we assess against. The themes are: reporting & support, case management and response strategies, informative data & analytics, meaningful interventions, whole organisation approach and engagement with Culture Shift.
