There’s theory and then there’s application.
We publish a lot of articles about the way that we think companies should tackle the issues we care about. But knowledge without successful and swift application doesn’t interest us that much.
In other words, talk is cheap. We deliver because we only put Wayforward associates that move fast and hit hard in front of our clients.
Storytime.
A mid-sized SAAS company was recently acquired by private equity. Cue a major cultural transition. And, over the past year, the impact of a staggering turnover rate.
Wayforward conducted an assessment of the leadership team’s alignment and the company’s employee experience. Two things that in our experience are always and inextricably linked.
At the leadership level, our assessment found that while the team was closely aligned on their long-term strategic goals, there was:
- significant misalignment around immediate priorities, company values, and expectations of employees
- a clash between the inertia of encouraged behaviors from the “old” culture and the expectations of the new ownership.
And what was intended to be an initiative to streamline processes in an effort to scale - had sucked up months of energy and resources from the organization with little tangible results.
These factors all contributed to a cascading sense of confusion among the general employee population.
People felt disempowered to make decisions because they had no clear priorities or values to base those decisions on. Leaders ended up being pulled into day-to-day activities out of necessity. This began to foster a sense of hopelessness in employees. Feeling as if it was impossible to be successful in their roles, employment elsewhere became attractive. Turnover begot turnover until institutional knowledge was all but flying out the door.
Our task then became to immediately establish strong alignment within the senior leadership team. To crystallize accountability for every role throughout the organization - defining the metrics each team member was accountable for keeping on track. The importance of re-engineering the development and execution of new processes with buy-in as the most important piece became tantamount. Then capturing the positives of the employee experience: to formalize them into the future of the organization, and form a strong employer brand for recruitment efforts.
Moving forward, the leadership of this organization has tools and strategies to agree on and activate against priorities. In doing so, they see the value of meaningfully engaging employees, resulting in employee buy-in, empowerment, and retention.
If your story sounds similar to this one - your company is going through a major change, or you're experiencing alarming levels of turnover - we'd love to talk more about helping you right the ship. Schedule a consult with Wayforward today.
