At the start of 2022, one of our bold objectives was that we wanted to build a culture where everyone could be appreciated for who they are, where diversity was understood and appreciated by all colleagues and to build a workplace where all colleagues are engaged, valued and proud of the contribution that they make.
Why was this important?
At Perspicuity we have a mission to make work better for our colleagues, our customers, and our partners, we believe that good business can and should be a force for good. We have several initiatives going on that demonstrate this belief.
Some background information…
One initiative that we have is backing the United Nations support the goals campaign and we have the following priorities:
We are working hard to ensure that all our colleagues can grow through having personalised development plans (Quality Education) and are improving areas of Wellbeing for our teams.
At this point I will draw you to research by Gallup, that tells us that people who focus on strengths are three times more likely to have a good quality of life and six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs.
So, when we bring together the need for a development methodology to help people grow that will allow us to have conversations of diversity and increase levels of wellbeing, building a strengths-based culture brought a lot of things together.
Our approach…
We used Gallup’s ‘How to create a Strengths Based Company Culture’ (How to Create a Strengths-Based Culture | Gallup) as a starting point but made some tweaks to suit Perspicuity and came up with this strategy
The most senior people were ‘on board’ early on and wanted to invest in a strengths-based approach which included training someone who could champion Strengths throughout the journey.
Let everyone discover their strengths…
We set the challenging target for all colleagues to have complete their strengths assessment by the end of June, this created some fascinating conversations that took us away from our weaknesses (- we still have to mange those -) but a focus on what we do well.
Have continued conversations about strengths
We have so far held lunch and learns, had an all-colleague day based on strengths (see photos below), and offered coaching to all colleagues on strengths. We have an ongoing expectation that all Line Mangers will have strengths-based conversations as part of our performance cycle.
Allow Colleagues to continually recognise Strengths
We have created visual reminders throughout the office, included strengths in our e-mail signatures, we have also as part of our cultural recognition program – set up the ability for colleagues to recognise each other’s strengths each month.
What do our Colleagues think?
Gemma Rodway
"I love my strengths; all my friends know about them and i find myself picking up on them even outside of work. In work, I'm trying to work with colleagues who have strengths that I don't have to increase efficiencies"
Ellie Green
"When I told all my friends and family what my strengths were, they couldn't agree more! I am so much more confident in using mine now and recognise other colleagues’ strengths much easier now I know more about them"
Jasper Tibber
"After our strengths session, I told my family about my own strengths and how I use them in a day-to-day life outside and inside of work and they completely agreed with my strengths, and they wanted to find out their own strengths themselves. Building a strengths-based culture has been an amazing idea as it allows you to get to know yourself in ways you didn't know, as well as working with colleagues who have strengths you want to learn more about"
Elliot Ashley
“Before knowing about our strengths, I would never have recognised them nor understood what they were. However, since our sessions I can now recognise my own and others and use them positively in our work environment to bring the best out of myself and colleagues”
Nikita Bird
"I would never have thought about my strengths until we did this exercise, in fact I did have to google what 'restorative' meant as I wasn't overly sure of its meaning, and this was one of my strengths. Now I know my strengths, I would say they are very accurate in my work and personal life, and it’s opened my eyes to how I really make good use of my strengths on a daily basis and how my strengths can impact and benefit those around me"
What is next?
We have done so much, we are making progress, yet the Maximiser in me wants to continue the journey towards excellence, I know that we have so much to do.
What I do know is that doing business is a great opportunity to make a difference, we will continue to create a workplace that does good things, for our colleagues, our customers, our partners and our communities, we hold this responsibility close to our heart, (Responsibility is an organisational strength) we have so much to do, I look forward to continue the work of supporting great people doing what they do best every day.