Blog Archives - Organic P&O Solutions

How ‘Organisation Design’ will help you to have a successful 2025

2025 is just around the corner and lots of business owners we know are already planning ahead.

You’re likely using this time to take stock of the year to date, looking at your goals for 2025 and thinking about what you need to do to get there.

An important part of this process is reviewing your ‘Organisation Design’.

Simply, this is making sure you have the right people in the right place, doing the right things, well.

It involves figuring out the best way to arrange your teams, roles and workflows so that everyone knows what they need to do, how they fit into the bigger picture and how they can work together effectively.

Just as with a construction build, if the design is strong and well-thought-out, everything inside runs smoothly, and improvements and adaptations are easier.

If it isn’t thought through enough or worse, it’s poorly designed, things start to break down, making it harder to grow and adapt.

So, maybe it’s time to review your organisation design. You can start by asking questions like:

• Are my employees in the right roles, and do they know what’s expected of them?
• Is communication flowing easily between departments?
• Are decisions being made quickly and effectively, or are there bottlenecks?
• Are my processes and systems set up in a way that help the business to move towards its goals?

How will Organisation Design help me to grow my business?

Organisation Design drives business growth by creating a well-structured, efficient framework that directly aligns with the company’s strategic goals.

It ensures that the right people are in the right roles, with clearly defined responsibilities and reporting lines, so that everyone understands how their work contributes to the company’s goals.

This strategic alignment means business leaders can focus their resources on high-impact areas, maximising productivity and reducing inefficiencies.

By optimising processes and eliminating redundancies, companies can operate more effectively, reducing costs while improving speed and adaptability.

In short, a well-designed organisation is better equipped to scale, adapt and seize new opportunities, driving sustainable growth.

Has your organisation structure been designed, or has it evolved?

To continue the analogy, building an organisation structure works principally the same way as a construction project.

First, you design it and then you build it.

However, because organisations often grow through evolution, we find ourselves with structures that may not be what we need for the next phase.

If you were to start from scratch and redesign your organisation to best meet its goals, would it look the same as it does now?

If not, it may be time to rethink your structure to ensure its fit for growth, scalability and long-term success.

This is something you should consider when planning for 2025.

How are you planning to grow in 2025?

In this guide, we will look at the top 3 growth models and explore how your Organisation Design will need to be adapted to suit each growth model…

Organic growth

In these early days, it is common for roles to overlap—for example, the Finance Director may also handle HR. This is fine when you’re small and lean, but, as you grow, you must ensure that roles are clearly defined for future needs, especially where there are roles that require multiple hats. You can then plan and budget for new roles in line with your growth plans.

Growth by acquisition

Your Organisation Design should aim for standardisation if you plan to grow through acquisitions. This means having processes and systems in place to integrate new businesses into your structure easily.

Consider creating acquisition integration teams or centralising functions like HR, Finance and IT to support multiple companies and improve efficiency.

Diversification

If you’re entering new markets or launching new products, you may need to structure your organisation by division or business units. This allows you to track performance by unit and either centralise or decentralise functions based on the specific needs of each division.

A matrix structure may also be helpful, allowing for multiple reporting lines and supporting flexibility across different business areas.

You need to review your Organisation Design regularly…

Once you have designed your organisation or built your ‘wall’, you’ll need to step back and review it regularly to ensure that it remains fit for its intended purpose.

While we are all aware of those organisations that restructure constantly and seem oblivious to the fatigue and anxiety this causes, taking a regular 10,000ft view of the structure and adjusting as required will be a necessary part of your strategic alignment.

We operate in agile markets and our organisations must respond to the changing market conditions by being agile and flexible.

We’re here to help

Organisation Design is a vast task that can be daunting. This is where expert HR consultants like us can help.

We have:

• Experience in designing to deliver against a range of different strategic outcomes
• Seen what has worked well and what has failed
• Insights into different sectors that may take an entirely different approach to Organisation Design
• Experience with the peripheral elements like systems and processes to support your wider design.

If you want to have a great 2025, get in touch with us today to discuss your organisation design.

Employment surveys are one of the most powerful tools you can use as a business leader

As a business leader, one of your jobs is to make big, difficult decisions.

When making a decision, you take care to look at all of the information available to you so that you can make the best, most informed decisions.

And when it comes to making decisions about your people, you know it’s important to use the same care and due diligence because they are the people that deliver for your customers.

Employee surveys are a really useful solution to finding out answers to how your employees view your business. They can provide valuable insights that can inform decisions for your team.

I would go so far as to say they’re one of the most powerful tools you can use as a business leader because they help you to bridge the gap between what you think is going on and how people are really experiencing working in your business.

Here’s how to conduct a great survey:

Step 1: Create a specific focus for your survey informed by business outcomes.

Step 2: Decide how you will conduct the survey, for example, online forms, in-person interviews or group sessions.

Step 3: Create questions that will prompt the insights you need in a way that you can use to measure, benchmark and compare data in the future.

Step 4: Frame the survey to your employees and encourage them to take part.

Step 5: Decide how you want your employees to complete the survey.

Step 6: Review results and create findings.

Step 7: Create your action plan.

Step 8: Communicate findings and actions to your team.

Step 9: Act on the results.

Step 10: Check in 6 months later to see if you’ve changed the right things..

We’re here to help

To help you gain the best insights from your survey and to convert your findings into a great action plan, we’re here to help.

Get in touch for a confidential chat today.

Overcoming Fear of Failure & Embracing New Challenges: What I Learnt in the Mountains!

How are you at dealing with challenges that take you outside your comfort zone and require you to go beyond your usual points of reference?

When you have to do something new, something you’re not familiar with or don’t understand, it’s natural your ‘fight or flight response will kick in, causing you to feel nervous, anxious – perhaps even frightened.

In the workplace, where organisations must continually respond to threats and opportunities, and the people working in them have to adapt and evolve, change is a constant. Constant change creates uncertainty, and that creates stress.

Understanding how you behave in stressful situations, the reactions that are triggered and how you can manage them is crucial. It’s why each year, our client Berkeley Construction takes their new apprentices out of the workplace and into the great outdoors for a week of team-building and personal development exercises. Working with our client, we use behavioural observations made during these activities to inform the learning and development programmes we deliver to their apprentices.

In February, I joined a group of first-year apprentices in the Lake District, undertaking a wide range of adventure experiences, including mountain climbing, abseiling and kayaking. I was there primarily to observe, but as an active participant as well, the five days I spent in Eskdale provided me with insights into how I personally respond when mentally and physically tested. By coincidence, this was something I had a further opportunity to reflect on just a few weeks ago, when I went on a ski holiday with friends from my BNI networking group.

The first time I went skiing, it reminded me how we all learn in different ways and inspired me to draft my blog, 4 Insights That Will Boost Your Learning Power. This time – only the second time I’ve skied – my experiences gave me an opportunity to reflect on how I deal with stressful situations.

My mountain adventures in the Lake District and the Alps both helped to reinforce some important lessons about the process of learning to overcome fear of failure and embrace new challenges:

Stress testing is best done in a safe space

We all respond differently to stress. Understanding where you go mentally and physically when dealing with a stressful situation will help you recognise warning signs and put coping mechanisms in place, ensuring you stay in full control.

Learning these things about yourself is best done in a safe, non-work environment. Finding settings outside of work where you can safely activate stress triggers, see how you respond, and practice managing responses will help you develop skills you can transfer to work situations.

Scrambling up cliffs and throwing oneself down icy mountains might be extreme examples, but under skilled supervision, they certainly helped teach me a lot about my own instinctive responses.

My ski experience also gave me a real insight into why, in new environments, we might not always comply with logical instructions. Many of the critical actions that keep you upright while skiing – like leaning forward when going downhill and out when making a turn, are counter-intuitive. I knew these things because I had a great instructor, but despite knowing what I had to do, there were times early on when fear took over and made me doubt what I’d learnt – with inevitable results!

Developing muscle memory takes time

It was interesting to see the different approaches to skiing in our mixed ability group. While I worried I hadn’t put enough time and effort into preparing myself properly, the more advanced skiers never questioned their fitness levels or capabilities. It took me a while to overcome this feeling and to recognise I wasn’t asking anything of my body that it wasn’t’ already capable of doing.

I noticed too that while I was comfortable putting lessons learnt into practice on wide, gentle slopes, as soon as the environment changed to narrower, steeper gradients with more significant drops to the side, all my training was – initially at least, forgotten. In my head, the consequences of crashing overrode all I’d been taught. Instead, I automatically reverted to the brace position, incapable of implementing the techniques I knew would get me down the mountain safely.

What became clear was that learning was a process. I needed to constantly remind myself that I did know how to deal with the new environment I was in, that I did have the skills but not, as yet, the experience that only comes with practice.

After my lessons were over for the day, I’d practice the techniques I’d learnt on safer, less steep slopes. They quickly became second nature as learning transitioned into embedded muscle memory – in my head as much as my legs – and I felt able to trust my instincts in more testing environments.

Trusting those with experience & knowledge is vital

Both experiences reinforced the importance of trusting those who are teaching a skill we want to learn. Of course, this is especially true when there is a physical risk to our person, but it applies equally in a business environment.

On one of my ski lessons, the weather suddenly closed in around us at the top of a run, and visibility became very poor. Normally, I’m pretty unflappable but without visual cues. I found myself starting to panic.

What got me to the bottom of the slope in one piece was the level of trust I’d developed with my instructor. I knew she was an expert in the skill I still had to master and that having taught me for several days, she had the measure of my capabilities, limits, character and personality and wouldn’t ask me to undertake something I wasn’t capable of doing.

By being consistent, supportive, and direct during the week about what I needed to do to improve my skiing, she’d earned my trust. As a result, I was completely comfortable following the instructions she gave me as she helped me negotiate my way to the bottom of the slope – which it transpired as the weather cleared, was significantly less steep than I’d imagined!

If she hadn’t managed my crisis of confidence sensitively and had instead simply barked instructions at me, my belief in my ability would almost certainly have been seriously damaged.

My mountain top wobble also demonstrated how nervousness and uncertainty can transfer to those going through a learning process together: how a person leading a team through a new challenge may need to manage fall-out in those around someone struggling with a task – as well as managing the individual themselves.

One of our group, who up to that point had been making good progress and was very confident, lost their nerve when they saw me panic, with the result that the instructor had to talk us both down.

The activity leaders on our Outward Bound adventure were similarly perceptive and professional in their approach, ensuring that if someone was nervous about participating in an activity, the feelings of the whole group were considered.

How often, in a work situation, do we miss subtle signals in communication because we’re so focused on getting someone to complete a task?

A supportive, sharing environment aids learning

In the Lake District and in the mountains too, I found being part of a supportive team of people all striving to overcome the same challenges and achieve shared goals helped me with the learning process.

The Outward Bound programme allowed for regular periods of review and reflection, enabling us to consolidate learning points and helping to foster a cycle of continuous improvement. And on my ski trip, although our group consisted of a wide range of abilities and we went our own ways on the slopes, we came together in our chalet at the end of each day to exchange stories, discuss experiences, celebrate success, talk through fails, and provide moral and technical support.

For me, this part of the day was an especially important component of the learning process. In the workplace, the power of providing a space where colleagues going through a learning programme together can engage in useful dialogue, share and compare experiences and generally support one another can often be overlooked.

If you have to face a new challenge or go through a difficult transition at work, you might not be aware of feelings of fear or resistance. Because you’re not physically at risk, they may be relegated to your subconscious.

We need to remember that one person’s fear may be very different to someone else’s. Fear of failure or not being good enough can come from many places, and an employer or line manager can’t be expected to know or understand everything about the feelings of those people for whom they have responsibility.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to recognise that we’re all on our own journey. If you or a colleague are struggling with a challenge, could a different environment bring a better understanding of your automatic responses and help uncover solutions to help deal with them?

In the mountains, the guidance and support of experts gave us the confidence to put learning into practice in safety. It enabled us to test new skills, reflect on results and push boundaries without fear, and return to our workplaces with a much better understanding of ourselves.

Can Organic P&O Solutions Help You with Bespoke Learning & Development?

Dealing with demanding challenges in an ever-changing environment means your employees and line managers are under constant pressure to take decisive – often difficult actions. The success of your organisation depends on their ability to perform under pressure.

Organic P&O Solutions’ strategic and operational Learning and Development programmes are designed to equip you and your team with the skills needed to deal with all eventualities. We can create customised topical training programmes to address your requirements – and with the lifting of Covid regulations, we’re now able to deliver them face to face again.

Call us today to find out more about our Learning and Development programmes and how they can help you!

Unlock the Power of Motivation: 6 Steps to Get the Best Out of Your People

My blogs often focus on people and teams and how they tick, but to get the most out of our people, we need to look at what creates a productive and effective workforce and how to develop a culture of performance through dialogue.

However, I’ve not yet addressed one essential driver of performance. Something that can be difficult to define, may have a very different meaning for each of us, but if missing, can impact individual and team effectiveness hugely.

I’m referring, of course, to motivation. It’s something that’s been front of mind for me recently as I’ve drafted CPD e-learning modules on the topic and because of observations I’ve made in the course of working with teams. It’s also a subject that’s cropped up in a personal context: in conversations I’ve been having with a friend who’s feeling particularly unmotivated in their job.

As employers and employees, we must try to be aware of what motivates and de-motivates ourselves and those around us. In the workplace, many of us will share some common motivational drivers – most obviously around the rewards we receive for our labour in the form of salary and benefits.

But motivation goes much deeper than this and is far more subtle. Much of it happens on a subconscious level. You know when you’re feeling especially fired up or particularly sapped of enthusiasm, but how often do you take time to analyse the cause, so you can either replicate or avoid the feeling in future? Probably not as often as you should, and the same is likely to be true when it comes to managing a team or working with colleagues. But understanding what makes yourself and others tick can be vital when it comes to getting to the root of why something isn’t working as it should or re-igniting passion where it may have dropped.

When you discuss performance with an employee, your focus will be on communicating what you want them to achieve or do differently and ensuring you get the dialogue right. For a conversation to be truly effective though, it must do more than just make your expectations clear; it needs to leave the other party feeling motivated and enthused about what you want them to do.

Here are 6 things you can do to unlock the power of motivation and help inspire individuals and teams in your organisation to deliver their best:

1. Learn what motivates your people

As the motivator, you can only light the fuse – the response must come from within the person you want to motivate, and this means making an effort to find out what motivates the individuals in your team.

Each of us is motivated by a unique and complex interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Learning what these are for each of your people will be key to creating an environment that encourages everyone to deliver their best.

Identifying what these drivers are is something that both parties need to work on in the conversations they have with each other. It’s a delicate balance – while showing little interest certainly won’t help motivation levels, too much enquiry might be seen as intrusive. Only by identifying and acknowledging what these drivers are will it be possible to recognise if something is missing and, if it is, take action to rectify it.

2. Think about the makeup of your team & give recognition where it’s due

To ensure employees feel motivated, you need to help them understand exactly where they fit into the team and what you expect their contribution to be – so they can deliver their best, and you can recognise their efforts appropriately.

For example, the input of an employee in an administrative role will be very different to that of a colleague in, say, a fee-earning sales position, but their contributions will be equally critical to the team’s overall performance and must be recognised as such. It might be easy to overlook the efforts of the employee in the admin role, but if their specialist skills are not given appropriate recognition, they’re likely to feel disconnected.

3. Check perception matches intention

When you want to highlight an issue and bring about change, it’s essential to make sure any conversations you have delineate between the task being discussed and the individual. If communication is anything less than crystal clear, an individual may take constructive criticism personally – rather than understanding they’re simply being asked to improve an aspect of their work.

Similarly, perception can be blurred, and your intention may be lost if you are too general about performance. For example, saying someone is good or bad at their role is not particularly useful. Instead, conversations need to specifically communicate where performance is good and where there is room for improvement, so the employee is motivated to do more of what they’re good at and get better in the other areas.

4. Be clear about your expectations

If a performance conversation is going to motivate, you need to have clarity about the expectations you have, expressing them clearly and being sure to frame them positively.

Rather than focusing exclusively on areas where improvement is required, you should make sure dialogue also acknowledges and recognises those areas where an individual is performing well in their role. Reassuring someone that you’re generally pleased with their performance will help make them more receptive to discussing areas where you want to see improvement – or identifying issues that might be holding them back.

5. Check emotional balance is in credit

If motivation levels have been allowed to drop below a certain level for a long time, bringing them back up again might present a real challenge. A prolonged period of poor leadership might have got a team to this point, but it may take more than simply introducing good leadership to correct things if the emotional balance of some team members is very low.

We need to recognise when people have run out of motivation. It may be a matter of addressing a core issue that’s impacting motivation and helping someone to reconnect, or it might require an open and honest conversation to uncover what’s missing and take corrective action.

6. Make motivation a partnership

Motivation in the workplace should be a shared responsibility. Everyone needs to make sure that everyone else is happy and motivated and flag up when this is not the case.

Employees need to let their managers know how they prefer to work and what they need to enable them to work better. And managers need to ensure dialogue is open enough that they can pick up on relevant information – and respond accordingly.

Let Us Help You Get the Best Out of Your People!

Motivation can make the difference between a mediocre effort and an excellent performance – and it’s an easy win that should run through all aspects of your HR cycle.

If you need advice and support creating a motivational culture that helps you get the most out of your people: one that promotes the right kind of dialogue and encourages people to bring their very best self to work, Organic P&O Solutions can help. Contact us today for an initial discussion!

Specialist HR Support – How Do You Know When Your Business Needs it? 5 Signs to Look For.

The development of HR in a business often follows a similar pattern. Initially, it starts out as the part-time responsibility of a nominated team member – perhaps with specialist HR support via a telephone advice line to call on for guidance. As the business grows and takes on more staff, the role becomes full-time and is given to someone with basic HR experience.

But there will come a time when this solution is no longer able to cope with the scale and depth of the organisation’s HR needs, and external specialist HR support is needed. While very large organisations can afford to invest in creating a dedicated internal HR resource staffed by experienced professionals, this isn’t an option open to most owners of small and mid-size businesses.

So how do you know when your business is approaching the point when it needs to have access to external, specialist HR support?

It’s different for every business: there are no set rules around headcount, turnover or any other metric. Although it isn’t possible to predict when the time will come with any degree of accuracy, it’s sensible to look out for early indicators so you can be proactive and prepare.

Working with a wide range of clients has given us an insight into some of the more common signals that indicate a business may be nearing the point when external support is needed.

Here are five to look out for:

1. When a single issue seems to dominate & never gets resolved

Many clients we work with employ between 11-50 people. I’ve noticed that when the headcount reaches around 20 or so, a persistent HR issue can often emerge. It might be about virtually anything, but most often, it will relate to a particular individual, and it just won’t go away. Because no one is quite sure how to address it and decisions aren’t made about it, it becomes disproportionate to its size and a distraction to business as usual.

2. When your internal HR resource doesn’t have the solutions you need

As already mentioned, it’s common for HR to be just part of one person’s role in a smaller organisation – perhaps supported by an advice line for guidance on basic rules and procedures. The individual may have minimal HR experience – possibly even none – and expectations of responsibilities will likely be limited to admin.

This kind of arrangement can work perfectly well, but at some point, an issue will almost certainly arise to test the boundaries of current capabilities, and this is a critical moment on the HR journey.

We often find ourselves called in to assist a highly competent individual who’s done a solid job of handling HR up to this point but finds themselves unsure of how to advise the business owner on a complex issue. And why should they? They don’t have the training, experience or knowledge to be able to provide a bespoke solution.

Without the right advice, a business owner who might otherwise be great at engaging and building relationships with employees, can easily find themselves out of their depth, leading to a bad situation becoming worse.

3. When your advice line provides rules & processes – but not the answer

While your HR needs remain relatively simple, subscription-based advice lines can be a cost-effective way to supplement your internal HR resource. However, most of these solutions tend to provide rather generic advice. They are generally great at reiterating rules and regulations and detailing the correct procedures to follow in set scenarios. But their value can be limited in more complex situations which call for a more nuanced approach and where an in-depth understanding of the business dynamics and the personalities involved is needed.

“Our HR requirements have changed as our business and workforce have grown exponentially. While our HR subscription service was still useful for queries relating to junior staff and apprentices, we recognised that we needed help implementing the advice provided. In addition, the service was not robust enough to support our needs in relation to senior staff.” Pete Mills, MD, Pantera. Read full case study.

4. When the consequences of not following due process catch up with you

In a small organisation, it’s easy for HR processes not to be applied quite as strictly as they should be. Lack of time, lack of knowledge, nervousness and a desire not to ‘upset the applecart’ might all be reasons for letting some seemingly minor issues go unchecked.

You might tell yourself that something isn’t important – and on its own, it might not be, but if you don’t follow processes, it’s probably going to catch you up sooner rather than later. Cut an employee some slack because they always meet their target, and when they really step over the line, you’ll find communicating your message much more difficult than it needs to be. Because you’ve not had the right conversations along the way, the employee might not even realise they were getting close to a red line. If you don’t follow the correct process from the outset, relationships can deteriorate, impacting your business – and you won’t get to the point where either the employee complies or you’re within your rights to take formal action.

5. When your business experiences significant growth or change

A period of growth or change in a business can often put pressure on an internal HR resource – especially when it hasn’t been explicitly planned with a specialist HR support focus.

You’ll have a business plan setting out key goals and milestones, but opportunities might present themselves – an acquisition for example, that may lead to an unanticipated growth spurt, or a new contract or client win might require you to add to your skillset by taking on new talent. Both scenarios have the potential to upset the dynamics of a business if they’re not managed with care.

“Our long-term objective is to manage our HR function in-house, but in the meanwhile, we needed an HR professional to advise and support us – and to train our internal resource. Working with Organic P&O Solutions gives us the reassurance that we’re doing things the correct way”. Anthony Young, Director, Bridewell Consulting. case study.

Where Are You on Your HR Journey? Is it Time for Specialist HR Support?

Do you recognise any of the indicators outlined above? If you do, it’s time to have a conversation about supporting your HR resource with external, specialist HR support, expert help and advice. Wherever you are on your HR journey, whatever level of internal resource you already have in place, and whatever kind of HR issues you might have to address, we’d love to assist you in your next phase.

At Organic P&O Solutions, our service can be as flexible as you need, adapting to your changing needs as your business grows. Get in touch with us today for an initial chat.

Working Parents: 6 Things You Can Do to Help You Get Through Lockdown

Balancing work with parenting responsibilities is tough at the best of times. But with homeworking, home-schooling and changing school schedules thrown into the mix during lockdowns, life has become even more stressful for working parents with children of school or pre-school age.

According to the Modern Family Index, there were 13 million working parents in the UK in 2019. For the same year, the Office for National Statistics reported that 75.1% (three in four) of mothers and 92.6% of fathers with dependent children were in work in the UK. All these numbers have been increasing steadily over the last 20 years or so.

It’s quite likely you’ll have working parents in your team, and you may even be one yourself.

Although we’re all in this together, each of us will be experiencing lockdown from our own unique perspective. As a working Mum myself and with working parents in my team, I can empathise with others in similar situations. I wanted to use this space to share a few of my own experiences and some coping strategies to help working parents – employers and employees alike – deal with these challenging times:

1. Keep talking!
The old adage has it that sharing concerns and worries with others halves the problem, and here at Organic P&O Solutions, we concur wholeheartedly with this simple piece of advice. Many of the challenges we’re asked to help with could have been resolved earlier if people had just had a conversation and reached out for help.

Employers and employees need to engage in open and honest dialogue, so there’s a clear understanding of the support everyone needs to do their job effectively. The answers may not always be easy or immediately apparent, but in our experience, solutions usually emerge from dialogue.

And it shouldn’t just be employees that open up about the challenges they may be facing. There can be a lot of pressure on an employer to present themselves as superheroes to their team. It’s an unrealistic image, and a better approach would be to demonstrate that they are in fact human – by, for example, admitting they’re finding home-schooling tough or that their energy levels have dipped. There’s no need to go into details, but by doing this, they will be helping encourage employees to share their own issues as well as taking the pressure off them to try to be perfect employees.

2. Find ways to connect with people you need & who need you
Lockdowns and social-distancing have reminded us just how much we depend on each other for support, and it’s important we find new ways to stay connected, offer help – and accept it when it’s offered to us. Every one of us is impacted by the pandemic, and by working together, rather than in isolation, there are plenty of ways we can support one another.

Think about where you need help, and about the support those in your work or social network might need. Are there places where these needs cross over? Perhaps there are ways you can mutually support each other professionally, personally or emotionally.

From a personal perspective, although I’m good at working on my own, I do need to interact with my team. I miss the breakfast meetings we used to schedule. While face-to-face conversations over coffee and croissants are not possible, I make sure we do the next best thing and make full use of video calling – not only to discuss business but also to socialise virtually and catch up for a chat.

Outside of work, I love to run, but with home-schooling as well as working I’ve had to reschedule things. I’ve taken to running with a friend once a week when my son stays with his Dad, and I also go on a regular monthly walk with another friend. It’s a temporary routine that allows me to meet my home and work commitments, get exercise and have some invaluable social interaction.

3. Be realistic & go with the flow
For anyone working and having to look after children, these are stressful times. Being a full-time carer, teacher, Mum or Dad, and doing a job from somewhere that’s probably part-home, part-nursery, part-school and part-office; and maybe with a working partner sharing the same space, is likely to stretch anyone’s nerves, patience and energy reserves to their limits.

It’s a situation that requires putting on and taking off different hats throughout the day. As far as is possible, try to engage the right mindset for the task at hand. This is easier said than done, but where you can, try to compartmentalise your time, dedicating set periods to tasks rather than attempting to multi-task too much.

Crucially though, don’t stretch your personal limits. The combination of high stress levels and depleted energy means you need to be realistic in your expectations of yourself and own what you can realistically achieve.

Over the summer, I realised I couldn’t sustain my early morning FastTrack Fit Camp sessions on the same days that needed me to still have energy to run around with my son or go out with him for a bike ride. Something had to give, or I’d burn-out, so Fit Camp sessions had to take a break for a little while.

I do also think that trying to make some space for yourself each day is essential. Being a lark, I start work early in the morning – usually between 6 am – 7.30 am. It means I can be with my son for breakfast and allows me to have some quiet time – for me, an essential ingredient for happiness and productivity. I get to look at the moon, enjoy a good cup of coffee and plan my day before the phone begins to ring or I’m needed on the home front!

4. Recognise that positivity & negativity both have roles to play
Our nature will mean we tend to either lean slightly towards pessimism or optimism. The scale and duration of the current situation call for balance. There’s no point in taking the approach that everything is coming up roses – but at the same time, being a complete Eeyore will get you nowhere either. Positivity and negativity can both be forces for good: the first supports resilience, momentum and forward direction, while the second can be a realism check to help identify potential obstacles and blind spots.

In short, both have their place, so embrace them and try to retain a sense of balance.

5. Allow time to transition between roles
Following on from the above point, a working parent will probably need to transition through a dizzying array of roles each day, morphing from breadwinner to teacher, confidante to cook, parent to partner, team leader to cheerleader – and more besides.

In any given hour I might have a coaching session with a client, check on my son’s schooling, clean the bathroom, work on a future product idea, give guidance to a team member about a project they’re leading and take a call for HR advice.

It’s emotionally and physically exhausting, and I know that if I don’t take at least some time out between each task, I won’t take any learnings from what I’m doing.

It’s only by learning that we can improve and make things better for ourselves, but it’s impossible to learn anything while in survival mode. Allow some time to feel comfortable regularly to allow the learning to emerge, so you can prioritise what’s useful.

6. Know your early warning signs & share them with others
If you’re struggling, it’s all too easy to just carry on and ignore the signals indicating that something is likely to give. Left unchecked work and family relationships might suffer, and mental or physical illness could become a real possibility.

It’s important to recognise as early as possible when things might be reaching a critical point, and often, others will see this in you before you see it in yourself.

Stress affects people in different ways. An out of character short temper, limited attention span, forgetfulness and excessive tiredness can all indicate that help might be needed. Most of us know how we react to stress, and we need to share our ‘tells’ with colleagues so they can look out for warning signs.

Can We Help You & Your Team Get Through Lockdown?
Hopefully, lockdowns and home-schooling will soon be consigned to history. In the meanwhile, if you or anyone in your team is struggling with the challenges of working through the current situation, Organic P&O Solutions can offer advice and support.

Get in touch with us today.

6 Questions to Ask Yourself for your 2021 People Plans

What plans do you have for your business in the New Year? Is your HR strategy in complete alignment with your organisational objectives?

Along with your plans for other core business areas like marketing, sales and finance, your people plan plays a critical role in ensuring your company achieves its goals. But it’s not set in stone: it’s dynamic and must be regularly revised and adjusted to keep pace with changing circumstances.

It’s good practice to review your people plan quarterly, and this is something we do with all our retained clients.

Reviewing your HR needs is an exercise in reverse engineering, requiring you to work backwards from your goals to consider their impact on your people – then check you have the infrastructure, skills, and competencies in place to make them a reality.

In our experience, businesses tend to focus on the resources and roles they need to have in their people plan, giving rather less thought to how those resources and roles need supporting to be effective.

A good people plan will look ahead to consider capability and training needs and try to anticipate potential change – for people as well as the business. If for example, you know an employee is going to be taking maternity leave in a few months, your plan needs to factor this in, identifying how continuity will be maintained, and when any conversations need to take place.

So, how does your people plan measure up against the ambitions you have for your business? Here are six questions to ask yourself:

1. DO YOUR EMPLOYEES HAVE THE RIGHT MANAGEMENT SKILLS?

Does your plan take account of all the skills your people need, highlight where there may be skill shortages, and identify how these will be addressed?

Too often, people are put into line management roles and expected to succeed because they’ve demonstrated they are technically competent. But this doesn’t mean they have the management skills their role calls for. Regardless of where an employee may be in the management line, do they have what it takes to engage, motivate and inspire loyalty in those people who report into them?

Do your people have the skills they need to deal with change? Businesses that invest in training managers and equipping them with the skills they need to manage, motivate and support people and teams are best placed to deal with change.

Inevitably, there will be times when you have no option but to be flexible, react and adapt, but this said, it’s vital to make sure you have a solid infrastructure in place for training people so that when change hits, those people impacted know what to do. Ideally, you will have anticipated and rehearsed potential scenarios, so plans have been experienced and tested.

2. ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES FULLY ENGAGED WITH YOUR BUSINESS?

To make the most of the skills, talent, knowledge and experience in your employees, you need to ensure that each of them is fully engaged with your business.

Ideally, at all levels in your organisation, you should be striving to foster an environment that encourages employees to invest fully in their role, so that for example, they’re prepared to dedicate discretionary time to consider ways systems and processes might be improved.

Building engagement requires looking at the ways you are connecting with your team – and the ways they are connecting with each other. But it isn’t only about communication, it’s also about emotional intelligence, and you’ll need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to nurture this skill within your people. For example, you might have equipped a line manager with all the technical skills required to undertake an appraisal, but do they have the emotional intelligence to have a heartfelt conversation with their colleague? A conversation that will be deep enough for them to fully understand the whole person at work – while keeping within boundaries?

3. DOES YOUR PLAN TAKE ACCOUNT OF YOUR EMPLOYEE’S FUTURE NEEDS?

As much as it possibly can, your plan needs to anticipate the future needs of your employees.

Using all the information available to you, you need to consider each individual within your organisation. What support do you need to put in place to help them be the best they can be? Are there any personal circumstances or life events you need to factor into your plan?

Assessing future needs to ensure your organisation gets the best return on investment in its people – and that employees get the best from the organisation – may involve having difficult conversations. But it’s crucial employees feel they can be open and honest, and confident you’ll listen to their needs as the business develops and grows.

4. ARE YOU LOOKING AFTER THE WELLBEING OF YOUR PEOPLE?

Is employee wellbeing embedded into your organisational culture?

In recent years, there’s been a growing focus on wellbeing in business. Often though, when it’s talked about, it’s in the context of employers going ‘above and beyond’. But it needs to become the norm. The pandemic threw the topic into sharp relief, and unsurprisingly, those employers who already proactively embraced the concept are those that have fared best.

Your employees are your most valuable resource, and taking care of them requires an approach that’s very different to the way you maintain and look after any of your other assets. Your business needs to invest in helping employees to stretch and develop themselves on a personal level, and to take care of their mental and physical health,

5. ARE YOU USING THE RIGHT CRITERIA TO JUDGE PERFORMANCE?

Are you rewarding the right people in your organisation?

Setting targets is key to achieving business objectives, but if you operate one-dimensional incentive schemes that only trigger a reward when a ‘magic’ number is hit – you may not be leveraging the full potential of your people. This kind of culture can lead to extreme swings in performance, and the focus on targets can distract attention from other vital areas and suppress creative thinking.

An ideal solution will identify and reward people who – though they may not always reach every target they’re set, nevertheless contribute to steady, constant and sustainable growth or improvement.

The concept that momentum is as important as achievement is best explained by business guru Simon Sinek in this video How Do You Measure Success?.

6. ARE YOUR HR POLICIES UP TO THE JOB?

Do you have clear HR policies to help guide you through any eventuality?

Taking the time to set down policies and keep them up to date is essential: by having them in place, everyone in your organisation will know where they stand, and they’ll provide a point of reference if clarity is required.

It’s easy to see creating HR policies as more burdensome admin, but not having them when they’re needed can prove disruptive and costly. It’s worth noting that those businesses with unambiguous homeworking policies found it easy to implement new ways of working during the lockdown.

If you don’t have HR policies across all your core people areas, you’re leaving rules and boundaries open to interpretation. Of course, when you come to apply rules, you can use discretion, but not having any to apply will leave you exposed.

Remember, you don’t have to invest your own time in creating HR policies – you can always engage an expert like Organic P&O Solutions to do it for you!

Let Organic P&O Solutions Review Your People Plan!

Tell us about your goals, about the opportunities and challenges your business is facing, and we’ll review your people plan to make sure you’ve got everything covered. Contact us today for an initial chat!

Making it Personal: 6 Ways to Use Personality Profiling to Build a Better Business

Being aware of the qualities and characteristics that create the unique personalities of the people we work with is essential – especially right now, when the pandemic means many of us are not able to connect with colleagues in person.

So, do you know what makes each individual in your organisation tick? Can you say what motivates them or which communication style they prefer? Do you know how they respond to stress or the types of people they do and don’t work well with? Can you predict how they’re likely to think and behave in different situations?

These are just a few of the questions you need to be able to answer if you’re going to get the best out of your people – and all of them require insight into the diverse range of personality types you’ll have in your business.

Understanding where your employees – and you – sit on the personality spectrum is a crucial step to developing improved teamwork, communication and productivity.

Thankfully, getting inside the heads of your employees doesn’t require you to be a trained psychologist. Ascertaining personality types is relatively straightforward. There are many profiling tools available that can assess and compare personality characteristics. They vary in sophistication and the level of information they return, but most are based on simple, multiple-choice questionnaires. There’s no pass or fail – each of us has a place on the spectrum – but the information they can provide has a range of practical uses.

You might think of profiling as something primarily used by employers when recruiting, to check a candidate has the qualities – as well as the qualifications and experience a position calls for. Certainly, if you’re recruiting, personality profiling tools can help make sure a candidate is a good fit for a vacancy – although, if this is the goal, they shouldn’t be used simply to identify traits, but rather as a means to understand the preferences of candidates in work situations.

At Organic P&O Solutions, we use personality profiling both for our clients and our own team. Here are six ways you can use it to benefit your business:

1. To Improve personal effectiveness

Profiling tools can be used on a one to one basis to help anyone get a deeper understanding of their personality. The process will provide insight into areas the person being assessed may not consciously be aware of, including how they make decisions, what they like to be appreciated for, their preferred communication style and their stress triggers.

Profiling shouldn’t be used as a one-time checking tool. Personally, I think there’s a good rationale for revisiting results regularly as context and circumstances change. As an example, at Organic P&O Solutions, we recently looked at our own team profiles to learn how each of us was likely to be affected by lockdown. It was a valuable exercise that helped us understand what we needed to do to assist each other and get the best out of ourselves individually and collectively.

2. To increase employee engagement

By helping employees understand their personality traits and how they fit within their team and organisation, profiling can help employees feel recognised, valued and accepted. As a result, it can bring about greater cohesion, a sense of belonging, higher engagement and more robust performance.

Research has shown that employees having the highest levels of engagement with their employer are likely to perform 20% better than other employees and are 87% less likely to leave the organisation. Clearly, engagement is directly linked to organisational performance (to find out more, download our whitepaper here).

3. To develop more robust team dynamics

When team members and managers understand the motives, tendencies and behaviours of each other, they can use this knowledge to inform how they interact. Profiling can create the opportunity for a more effective dialogue where team roles and responsibilities can be agreed, and where communication and conflict are easier to manage – leading to a strong team bond based on mutual understanding.

4. To enhance management skills

Personality profiling can help managers adapt their leadership style to get the best from their team. When a manager understands their own personality characteristics and those of their team, important decisions can be communicated in a way that takes into account what works best for individuals.

5. To build better communications
Personality profiling creates a common language that allows individuals to explore their differences more constructively. Knowing the personality types and preferences in a team, and understanding how you and others like to interact can facilitate better communication

Sharing results with employees will encourage them to adapt their behaviour where change may be needed, and make them aware that people may interpret the same thing in different ways – helping them understand why colleagues might see something one way while they see it differently.

6. To increase productivity
Crucially, personality profiling can positively impact your bottom line. Companies that focus on developing people and strengthening teams to their fullest potential will see an increase in productivity levels. This is because their team learning and individual preferences are linked to how goals can be delivered, and those, in turn, are connected with overall business objectives and performance metrics in a way that works for everyone.

You might believe you know what personality type you are – but you’ll almost certainly know someone who’s opinion of themselves – at least in certain situations, is entirely at odds with your own. You may believe you’re a good judge of other peoples’ personalities, but be honest – how often have you been proved wrong?

The fact is that we’re all capable of working outside of our preferred styles. For many years I worked in an environment that required me to be outgoing, so that’s the persona I adopted – but actually, I lean more towards the introvert/thinker end of the scale. When I have a problem to solve, the last thing I want to do is talk it through with someone: I need time to myself to focus and think things through. Because profiling has helped make me aware of this, and I’ve shared it with my team, they understand that this is how I like to work, they know to leave me alone while I consider the challenge and come up with a solution, before I bring it to the table for discussion.

Tools of the Trade

As mentioned earlier, there are plenty of personality profiling tools to choose from. In no particular order, here are three of our favourites:

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI has been around for nearly six decades. It’s my preferred tool when it comes to working with teams because it’s very scientific and can produce real ‘light bulb’ moments. However, being able to interpret the results and translate them into practical actions requires having a good understanding of the process.
DISC Profile
Even older than MBTI, DISC is an intuitive profiling solution that’s simple to implement. DISC refers to the four behaviour types the test assesses: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. It is more focused on behaviours than preferences but has the same Jungian roots as MBTI.
Thomas Kilmanm Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
TKI looks at how individuals deal with negotiation and conflict – both of which call for the same skills. We use this tool to help people understand how they can adapt their behaviour to address challenges and reduce the likelihood of conflict.

Let Us Help You Make It Personal

If you’ve not used personality profiling, you may not be getting the best out of yourself or your employees. Here at Organic P&O Solutions, we’re expert practitioners in a range of profiling tools. Contact us today to find out more about how we can use them to help improved personal and team performance in your organisation.

Get Your FREE Personality Profile Report!

Would you like a free personality profile report on yourself? We’re giving 7 reports away free of charge – but hurry, this offer is on a first-come-first-served basis.

Every Successful Business Depends on Great Suppliers: Meet Ours!

When I started Organic P&O Solutions, I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do. It’s the same now as it was then: to use my HR skills to help organisations optimise individual and team performance, face their key challenges, support them in times of transition and provide the resilience and momentum they need to achieve their goals.

Ambitious, yes, but I stuck to my guns, and seven years later I have a great team around me and we’re working with some amazing clients.

But of course, I didn’t do it all on my own. Besides the other HR consultants who work with me, Organic P&O Solutions depends on a range of vital suppliers who get on with the essential peripheral business functions like finance, marketing, design and IT – leaving us free to do what we do best.

In one of my recent posts, I wrote about seven important lessons I’ve learnt over seven years running a small business. In retrospect, I should have added an eighth lesson: To be successful, it’s essential to build a network of great suppliers who you trust and love working with.

I’m going to put that right now, by introducing you to the suppliers who have helped me grow Organic P&O Solutions into what it is today, and by sharing some thoughts about my own experience of developing a supplier network.

Meet the Suppliers We Couldn’t Do Without!

Bookkeeping

Mike Wallace: Rosemary Bookkeeping

One of the first things you realise when you start a business is how much paperwork you create. Managing it is a job in its own right. In the early days I had a virtual assistant to help me with my admin. When it became clear that Nat was too good for this role however, she quickly became my first trainee consultant, leaving me without anyone to do my bookkeeping.

The crunch came one Sunday morning when I found myself with three competing demands. I had to write a proposal for a big client pitch; I needed to prepare and send out my invoices which were overdue – and I wanted to spend some time with my son who had just started school. Something had to give, so I outsourced my bookkeeping to Mike, who I knew through networking.

Since then, Mike has taken care of my invoicing, making payments and looking after credit control. He takes the information from all the financial transactions we make and prepares it for our accountant without me even needing to see it.

Accounts

Ellen Lefevre: Lefevres Chartered Accountants

Of all the supplier relationships a business owner needs to develop, I’d argue that the one they have with their accountant is probably the most important. A good accountant can be integral to helping a business grow, and while it’s not impossible to change an accountant mid-relationship, it’s much better to get it right first time.

Ellen was recommended by a friend who also ran her own business. She did my very first set of accounts and we’ve worked together ever since. Highly proactive, Ellen gets financial information to me early, making sure I do what I need to on time, and keeping me updated on changes to things that impact the business like corporation tax an VAT. She adds real value, sitting down with me each year, taking me through my accounts and giving me invaluable advice.

Crucially, Ellen gets on really well and works seamlessly with Mike my bookkeeper. Together, they have put robust processes in place that mean I don’t need to get involved in the daily admin at all. This has given me space to develop my own analytical reporting information, so when I have my FD hat on, I can focus on the performance of the business – rather than worrying about paperwork and complying with statutory obligations.

Marketing

Lisa Vassallo: One To Three Marketing

Although I look after the implementation of marketing activity for my business, I’m outside of my comfort zone when it comes to marketing strategy. Thankfully though, I met Lisa through networking. I liked her approach right away, and after attending several of her social media workshops, decided she was perfect for helping me with marketing for Organic P&O Solutions.

Lisa has been advising me on my digital marketing activity for about three years now. We meet regularly to discuss my goals, and she helps me plan my social media in line with these, recommending appropriate content and style. Alongside this, she helps me interpret my analytics and refine my marketing, so I get the best results with my budget.

Lisa helps me to be braver and more creative. I have lots of ideas, but I trust her to challenge me if she doesn’t think something will work – and to help me develop the best ideas into something that will!

Digital Design

Karen Reynolds & Angela Pugh: Creative Associates

My relationship with Creative Associates is another one that goes back a long way. I worked with Karen and Angela when I was with Waterstones – where they were responsible for designing much of the branding and communication material. I always liked their work, so when I set up Organic P&O Solutions, and needed an online presence, I asked them to create my very first website.

The site’s been through several iterations over the years (in fact, I’m about to reveal another one in the very near future, so watch this space!), and Creative Associates are now firmly established as my brand guardians – my go to supplier for all my digital design requirements.

Print & Design

Tara Morris: Abstract Print & Design

We might live in a digital age, but print still has the power to stand out, impress and be remembered. I certainly use print – in marketing campaigns for postcards and bookmarks, as well as for client training materials – and when I do, I go straight to Tara!

IT Support

Rob Nossiter. Fibrefly

Like most businesses, at Organic P&O Solutions we depend on the functionality of our IT equipment, a secure network and reliable, 24/7 connectivity. Our remote working model makes us especially reliant on the ability to communicate with each other, and with our clients from anywhere – something that’s become even more critical in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

Rob makes it all happen (we have no idea how), looking after all our tech, making sure our software and apps are all up to date and ensuring we stay safe from any viruses and other online threats. Given that IT is so fundamental (and mysterious), it’s reassuring to know that Rob has our back and that if we do have any kind of issue, he’s only a phone call away.

4 Things I Learnt Building My Supplier Network

Nobody works in isolation. Behind every brand and every entrepreneur are a host of suppliers helping them to realise their full potential. Having gone through the process of building my own supplier network, here are my four top pieces of advice:

Take time to find the perfect match

When you’re a small business, your suppliers are your team, so it’s essential you find people who share your values, you trust implicitly, and who you genuinely enjoy working with. While there will be plenty of people out there with the technical skills you need, finding those that are right for you and your business is likely to take time.

Make the right connections

I relied on a combination of networking, word-of-mouth recommendations and contacts from my previous life in the corporate world. Referrals are great because they come pre-validated, while connections made through a networking group you consistently attend allow time for relationships to develop before you make any commitments.

A word of caution about using contacts you may have made from working in the corporate sector. While some of my strongest supplier relationships date back to my corporate days, I found out early on that not all suppliers are suited to supporting smaller businesses with their very different dynamics.

Think about how suppliers will work together

As you grow your supplier network, it will be important to keep in mind that some suppliers may need to work closely together – your bookkeeper and accountant for example, or suppliers of different aspects of marketing. This is where a recommendation or getting to know someone over a period of time through networking can be useful, but in the end, you’ll have to trust your own judgement

Learn to let go – outsourcing works!

If you’re not great at ‘letting go’ of things, engaging others to do work for you might take some getting used to. However, when you do start to outsource those tasks that you can’t do, you aren’t good at, you don’t like doing, or that aren’t financially worth you taking on yourself, you’ll quickly see how it adds value to your organisation.

**Why Not Give Your Suppliers a Shout Out?**

It’s easy to take your suppliers for granted but remember that most of us are running businesses that are both clients and suppliers. If you’ve found someone who’s great at what they do, why not do them a favour and share their details with your clients?

And if you know any organisation that is looking for help with their HR, please do pass on our details and tell them to get in touch for a chat!

Do you Have a Healthy Organisational Culture? Answer these 4 Questions to Find Out!

Many businesses will invest time and effort into defining their brand values – but will give somewhat less attention to shaping their organisational culture.

Is this true for you?

If you’re not nurturing a culture that promotes positive behaviours, habits and ideas in your team, your business is unlikely to be performing at its full potential.

Culture happens organically, but a healthy culture needs cultivating. I sometimes liken it to gardening. Positive aspects need to be tended and fed nutrients, so they grow and flourish, while negative aspects need weeding out before they have an opportunity to take root.

Part of developing a healthy culture in your organisation means identifying those great things that people are already doing in your business – whether intuitively or by ‘accident’, and adopting them across your business.

Although cultural health can’t be measured, it can certainly be felt, and it’s something I can usually pick up on very quickly on visiting a client’s premises. Key signals include the general atmosphere, whether I’m greeted with suspicion or welcomed, the way people communicate and interact with each other and whether they’re happy to speak openly in the office or prefer to meet behind closed doors.

Over many years of being called in to advise on issues that – superficially at least – appear to stem from an individual employee – but ultimately transpire to be deeper rooted, I’ve noticed common factors that give insight into an organisation’s cultural wellbeing.

Based on my experience, here are four questions which will help you to determine if your culture is in good shape, or in need of attention:

How Does Recognition Happen & Who Gives It?

Do you have a culture where people feel the need to ask for recognition from their manager? Or where they’re continually drawing attention to their efforts and productivity compared to that of their colleagues? Both can be indicators of an unhealthy organisational culture.

In the workplace, we all need to feel our contribution is valued. But in a healthy culture, where recognition happens naturally, the way employees are treated and spoken to will let them know that they’re doing their job well and are appreciated. This is as much about people being complimentary about each other as is it is about managers taking time to say thank you and give praise.

How Are People Judged?

In some organisations, the amount of time an individual spends working over and above their contracted hours is seen as a measure of their commitment and loyalty to the business. Early morning starts or late-night finishes – maybe even both, are taken as proof that they’re working as hard and effectively as they can.

But an environment like this is almost certain to be masking cultural problems in an organisation. There’s only one way to measure performance, and that’s by results.

A ‘presence’ culture takes no account of the fact that every organisation is made up of individuals who work differently and have unique responsibilities outside of work. Someone staying late in a healthy results-based culture won’t automatically be judged to be working hard, or working inefficiently. In this kind of culture, management will instead ask themselves what caused the employee to need to work the extra hours, what difference did they make, who benefited – and does it point to a problem somewhere else in the system?

In a results-based culture, values are observed naturally, assumptions are checked before conclusions are drawn, poor performance is explored and issues are addressed and resolved early, so they don’t have the opportunity to grow into more significant problems.

How Are Mistakes Dealt With?

In a healthy culture, people aren’t afraid to ask for advice for fear of being criticised or looked down on. Rather, they know that in raising an issue, an employer will recognise there’s a capability gap in the business – not necessarily in an individual.

In this kind of supportive culture, employees won’t be reticent to come forward if they identify a gap, will be more likely to propose a solution, and individual personalities will not be part of discussions.

Consider your organisation’s approach to dealing with a customer complaint. Is your initial reaction to look for shortcomings in your team – rather than in their skills, in your processes or systems? If so, it may be that you need to work on adjusting your culture.

A healthy culture is one where mistakes are accepted and learnt from. People will have clear ownership and responsibility, and if something goes wrong, processes and systems will be reviewed first, and blame will not automatically be assigned to an individual.

Are People Forthcoming About Difficult Issues?

Many of the issues I’m asked to advise on began as minor problems. However, because they arose in a closed culture, they were allowed to fester and grow, rather than (back to our gardening theme) being nipped in the bud.

A healthy, open culture leaves no space for rumour, gossip or suspicion. When all team members are fully informed all the time, changes don’t come as a surprise. Because they are anticipated and understood, even difficult decisions are supported.

How did you do? Are all the signs pointing to your culture being perfectly in balance, or do they indicate that you have areas to work on? Whether you need a cultural revolution or just a little evolution, Organic P&O Solutions can help!

We Can Help You Develop a Culture that Improves Team Engagement & Productivity!

Your cultural health needs to be a focus whatever the size of your business. The bigger an organisation becomes, the more complex its cultural dynamics, so the earlier you get the right foundations in place, the better:

We can help you to develop a culture where people intuitively behave as they should, recognition occurs naturally, performance is based on results and mistakes lead to change, not blame. A culture where there are fewer misunderstandings and disputes because all team members feel included and valued, confident in raising difficult issues and trust each other enough to have open and honest conversations

If this sounds interesting, get in touch and let’s arrange to have an initial discussion about your organisational culture!

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