Ways of changing organisational culture

One way of changing organisational culture is through training existing employees into the new ways of the company. Barclays has started this process, they are trying to change the negative culture of their business by directing the change themselves. 2013 saw the end of the aggressive profit hungry culture, with Bob Diamond leaving and Anthony Jenkins as the new CEO. By training their existing employees, Barclays can keep hold of their experienced and valued staff, and avoid the costs of recruitment. Training can be both time consuming and expensive but it is essential when trying to change such a large culture.

Training will benefit Barclays because it will show their employees how to model their new values of putting the customer first and becoming a successful team. This therefore means employees will be better equipped to make the correct decision and ensure that everyone throughout the hierarchy is doing their part. This minimises the risk of further unethical or illegal actions and ensures that employees act with more emphasis on the customer and Barclays as a whole instead of them as individuals. It is this that will help gain back consumer trust, which has fallen since the news of the error became public and plummeted their profits from £5.6billion to a mere £246million.

The success of the training does depend on the effective communication of the needs and ways of training from the new CEO, it is a significant change for Barclays and if it is successful it will build consumers trust, change their reputation and may persuade for new investment. Barclay’s negative culture was reinforced with the bonuses when targets were met; Lewin’s unfreeze-change-refreeze model suggests that the use of rewards will determine how successful the business is, as now the scorecard is different. This motivation for change will filter from the new CEO to all employees, but will ultimately depend on the effectiveness of the communication with employees, so they don’t fall back in their ways of Bob Diamonds Barclays.

Alternatively another way to change the culture is to recruit for new employees to bring innovation and fresh ideas to the business. Royal Mail has seen to be adopting this strategy. The new CEO, Moya Green, has been appointed when Royal Mail is facing extreme pressure from its large e-commerce rivals and believes that the business needs some new, fresh and innovating ideas from new staff. As this is the quickest way to help change the culture of un-innovative at Royal Mail.

            It is unlikely that this will be the quickest way to change Royal Mail. As although new employees will be brought in, there is no direction for the existing employees to follow therefore making it unlikely to change effectively and within a short amount of time.
Recruitment of new employees will benefit Royal Mail because it will bring in new and innovative minds to the business; this therefore means the new employees are more likely to contribute to the change of culture that Moya Green wants. This minimizes the risk of Royal Mail not changing quickly enough for their competitors to change. This will help increase competitiveness and the rate of change will be more efficient within the business, aiding to raise their £12million profit from September 2011.

Royal Mail will have to make sure that their recruitment process fully understands the need for change, and even if this is done, it still will have no impact on the existing workforce.
In comparison to Barclays, Moya Green intends to change Royal Mail from the outside in, by bringing these new employees to manifest the change. Anthony Jenkins however has made it clear that he wants Barclays to change with the employees it already has, but wants to make them successful in a different way.

Another way of changing organisational culture is through creating incentives for the employees to follow. This can be seen at business like John Lewis, where they have a positive bonus culture, wherein every employee is rewarded financially. As Taylor stated, financial rewards for progress are a big motivator, and although the rewards are given across the business, it is likely that different levels of reward will be given out. This will be an effective way of improving the productivity and motivation of the employees and this will have a significant impact on the customer service and also the profits of John Lewis. The impact of positive employee performance will continue to make John Lewis a reputable business for both investors and consumers alike, therefore it means that the John Lewis partnership with Waitrose is likely to gain large amounts of market share and further boost its profits. The business already saw a 60% increase in its sales in only the first half of 2012 a clear sign that excellent customer service is likely to impact on the business in a highly significant manner

However, a bonus culture is not always good for the business, this was seen at Barclays, and is one of the reasons that the business is in need of a change of culture. Their profit hungry and bonus focused business turned the culture into a negative one, and even lead staff to preform unethical and illegal tasks. Barclays show that a bonus culture, if it is not a positive one like John Lewis, can have significantly bad results. It was this as previously stated down on profits with just £246million in its last year. Having a culture that rewards certain behaviours is something Lewin stated in his unfreeze-change-refreeze model, as the reward is the reinforcement to the action, regardless of whether the action is good or bad. This process could aid in the change of the culture at Barclays, maybe even keeping the bonuses; but the new CEO should be careful that the business doesn’t slip into its old ways once again.