I’ve spent a lot of time in organizations. A LOT. From working in them to working for them to researching them, I spent several years studying organizational change, leadership and culture.

Through my doctoral and post-doc research, I developed the CultureComm Model as a way for organizations to understand the impact of communications and culture on their external brand.

In a nutshell, the Model demonstrates how the cycle of properly onboarding and preparing new employees for their roles within your organization can impact their engagement. The level of employees’ engagement affects organizational culture and, eventually, how your brand is perceived both those outside of your institution. Brand perception can then affect talent attraction and recruitment.  

The CultureComm Pillars

All pillars of the CultureComm Model work together, sometimes in tandem, sometimes overlapping. What’s important to note, however, is that if one of the pillars is off in some way, it can affect the overall cycle.

Onboarding

This is your opportunity to share resources and unwritten rules; introduce your mission, vision and values; leverage the enthusiasm and energy of new employees and build brand ambassadors.

Employee Engagement

“Engaged employees are those who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward. They perform better and differentiate you from your competitors.” (Gallup, 2017)

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is not tangible. It can function as either the social glue binding employees together or the barrier to change within an organization, hindering its ability to move forward

External Brand

Branding is the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group or organization (Ellis, 2009). However, if your internal culture isn’t reflective of what you are trying to project externally, your overall brand will inevitably suffer.

Talent Attraction and Retention

It is less expensive and time-consuming to retain employees than to recruit, hire and train new ones, so it is imperative that all CultureComm components are working in tandem.

Don’t you want to be an organization where talented employees want to work and grow?

The CultureComm Organizational Assessment Service

CHALLENGE

You’ve lost top talent. Your employees don’t seem to be engaged despite the “perks” you’ve implemented.

Perhaps they’re not performing the way you’d like them to or your meetings and projects are not being run efficiently.

Your external brand touts one thing; the looks on the faces of your people show something else.

You think you’re communicating clearly and that you’re all working toward the same common goal. But something is off and you’re not sure what it is.

SOLUTION

Let our team apply the CultureComm Model to your organization. We’ll review everything as part of our CultureComm Organizational Assessment: branding, internal communication, onboarding, employee engagement, organizational culture and external reputation.

We’ll get to the root cause of any issues or disconnect, develop recommendations and create a strategy to help increase engagement, improve culture, increase efficiency and become the place to work in and thrive at.

Next Steps

• If you’d like to learn more, take a look at this article I wrote for CASE Currents.

• Contact us to inquire about this service.

• Get on our email list for the latest research in these areas.