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How Organisational Culture is influenced was the topic discussed and delved into at the Tandem breakfast in December.

The word “Culture” and its importance have become crucial to the public and employees more than ever before. Especially in light of the Financial Services Royal Commission, culture has been “blamed” yet employees and consumers rightfully have very high expectations for the right culture to be in place, to ensure business are ethical, sustainable and good places to work.

The breakfast was facilitated by expert and highly experienced HR Director, Denise Hanlon. Speakers included Erin Cramlet, the Senior Director Human Resources APAC Medical at Stryker. Erin has played a key role in a major milestone, with Stryker being recognised as one of Australia's Best Places to Work since 2014. Alongside her we had Gabrielle Pimstone, who is a Director at EY People Advisory Services. Gabrielle is a Senior OD practitioner with a deep focus on culture. Before joining EY in Sydney, she was Head of Organisational Development at Nedbank in South Africa, a company of 32,000 people, where she led a strategic OD function enterprise-wide.

The discussion delved through the journey that Stryker Australia has gone through. Erin discussed the importance of leadership within and holding of values, being commercial, having authentic conversations and yet see-sawing the balance for caring for employees and being in a high performing environment. Gabrielle discussed her time in South Africa as Head of Organisational Development for Nedbank, and the culture journey after more regulations & compliance were bought into the country, similar to what is facing Australia soon.

The depth of questions to our participants from the audience highlighted the interest “culture” had with many organisations. The journey in cultural transformation is a slow one and definitely not an overnight fix. One got a sense even that sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back depending on what is happening in the business and leaders. What was highlighted was that community and employee expectations are certainly heightened now about what culture should resemble and standards some companies are attempting to move to. Additionally, companies that are not meeting these standards are being called out to account and sometimes very publicly.

Interestingly more agile working environments in terms of space and driving a more productive and engaged workforce resonated with people in the room but was certainly not the entire complete answer, but just a lever.

Thank you to everyone who attended, and to our speakers for contributing to such an insightful event.