From Good to Great: The Transformative Power of Organizational Culture

Welcome to Behind the Greatness! by Great Place to Work Middle East, the Global Authority on workplace culture in the Middle East. On this episode, we speak with Mona Seleim Klein, Director of Culture Coaching and Elias Mansour, customer relationship manager. From Great Place to Work middle East.

Mona Seleim:

So, hi! This is your host Mona Seleim, and you’re listening to Behind the Greatness! a podcast provided to you by Great Place to Work. I’d like to have our special guest today, Elias Mansour, introduce himself to us.

Elias Mansour:

Hi, my name is Elias Mansour. As a small introduction, I’m the regional customer relationship manager for Great Place to Work. In the Middle East. And as I mentioned, I’m very happy to have this conversation with you today.

Mona Seleim:

So, it’s really nice to have you with us and it’s a great time for us to start a conversation. Tell me, what do you think about a company being great? What do you define a company being great to you?

Elias Mansour:

That’s a big question. The answers to this question are endless, and they really depend on the angle you’re looking at it from. So, are you part of the executive team? Are you an employee, or just an observer who is analyzing this question? But if I would try to sum it up… it should have a clear and noble purpose, doing good for people and society, and it should deliver high quality services and products. The employees should be given the opportunity to succeed and grow and this is why we exist as Great Place to Work. Of course, and delivering revenue and financial growth in general as a company, which is also one of the many ROIs of implementing our approach as Great Place to Work.

Mona Seleim:

Oh, interesting! I like what you said, because what happens as employees is that they’re not looked at the way that they should and they’re the ones that are delivering the service. So, when you say for example, it’s important that a company delivers its service, they really have to look at the employees who actually deliver the service for them and therefore generate the ROI, right?

Elias Mansour:

You said a very important word that I always use ‘generate’. They are the generator. They are the heart of the company. So, if the employees are not empowered with all the possible resources, are listened to, valued, trainings, everything that is needed… then the company will be lacking the support from their most valuable asset, their people.

Mona Seleim: That’s true. And would do you think constitutes an organizational culture?

Elias Mansour:

Well, I think it’s a foundation. It’s a series of pillars that constitute the world culture and we can’t have one without the other. Otherwise, the foundations won’t be rigid enough. These pillars are a set of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that make the general environment of the organization, so it’s the alignment of the company policies, mission, goals, and the employees’ behavior in the workplace. So, this alignment takes place through the how question. How things are done around the workplace.

Mona Seleim:

Do you think companies actually look at the organizational culture? Do they even know how to define their organizational culture?

Elias Mansour

We do, definitely help them in the definition of the organizational culture. This is why we exist as the global authority of workplace culture. There are a lot of organizations who do indeed invest a lot in improving their work culture, aiming to create the best work environment possible for their employees. The other majority of the companies do not do the same and that’s why they are falling behind and it’s all based on the different reports and findings that we look at, at Great Place to Work locally and globally.

Mona Seleim:

Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I would add to it, I don’t only think it’s a how, I think there’s a lot to do with the why. So, you have to understand why? Why the beliefs take place? Why do these attitudes happen in order to actually define what your culture is? Like, otherwise they sort of like will go into execution, thinking it’s the right decision or the right way to solve things, whereas it could actually not be, and therefore it is so important to actually understand the people themselves. What it is that they want and why are they behaving the way that they’re behaving to come up with!

Elias Mansour:

Absolutely! So, let’s add the how and the why to look at the organizational culture and start thinking of how to make it Great!

Mona Seleim:

How would you make it great?

Elias Mansour

What makes an organizational culture great? Well, you don’t have to overwhelm yourself with a lot of overthinking, just implement the Great Place to work approach and then you have it! Let us help you do that. So, in our methodology, we speak about 6 main pillars: the Growth. The Fortune 100 in the US work with us because they understand the impact of Great Place to Work on the growth. The Innovation, where everyone has the opportunity to be creative to bring new ideas to the table, and for the leaders to optimize their approach, to follow the current era, to create an environment that fits all generations. The Value System that you have as an organization and it shouldn’t be only sweet talks on the website, we need to walk the talk, as we always say. The leadership Effectiveness, Maximizing Human Potential and most importantly, Trust. So our 30 years of research have proven that the definition of a great place is where employees trust the people they work for, they have pride in what they do and they enjoy the work that they do, and the people they work for. What do you think about that Mona?

Mona Seleim:

I think so, but I’m very curious about the area of trust. How would you say companies value trust? I mean, how would they define it and how would they measure it?

Elias Mansour:

So, it’s not just one thing. It’s a focus on multiple areas. And this is what we actually measure in our journey. If we look at the Trust Index 5 main dimensions with Great Place to Work: we look at credibility, we look at respect, we look at fairness, we look at pride, and camaraderie. These are the main dimensions that we test. And of course, there are a lot of verticals like the justice, the collaboration, the corporate image, the support. If we need to talk more about it, everyone needs to be offered an opportunity to grow. Great companies provide a continual stream of opportunities for their teams to learn, to develop, and to grow. The input of the employees should be valued and taken into consideration. We need to make sure that everyone’s time is valued, the work life balance is implemented and not just beautiful talks. And, trust can also take place with the recognition of Great Place to Work and it should not happen in the end of the year, when we look at numbers. Every time that there is a space or a potential for us to recognize people for their great work, it’s crucial to do so. Great companies don’t wait for a time to praise a team member. It’s very, very important to highlight the accomplishment. And of course, we need to ensure that everyone is safe and protected, mentally and physically.

Mona Seleim:

That’s very important. I think a lot of people stay in places because they feel that safety that you’re talking about! And, since now it’s a very competitive market, I would say, why do you think companies should invest in their culture?

Elias Mansour:

Things nowadays are different. The world is different. A lot has changed on a personal level, specifically post COVID, and a lot has changed in the business landscape. So, some companies tend to put people’s issues in the back, saying that they will deal with them when the time is right. But we both know very well that things can’t get better if people don’t get better. So, people are the core of every company. They are the most valuable asset as we started this conversation. Investing in your people will guarantee a better performance and it will reflect on many, many ROIs. We can speak a lot about it: The financial return. For example, if you look at the Great Place to Work certified companies in our US affiliate, they outperformed the market by 3.3%. Speaking about the employee retention and how much it could be costly to lose their employees, for example, at a typical hospital in 2022, the losses were between 5 and 9 million dollars. So, when the company culture is inclusive for all employees, people are willing to stay at the company for a longer time. It reflects also on the innovation, when employees experience inclusive work culture, they are better at challenging ideas and adapting to change, and this is what we call ‘the culture of innovation by all’. And of course. To deliver a good customer service, which is the point that you highlighted. So, the studies do confirm that Employees happiness translates in the employee efficiency and productivity, therefore, it will reflect on the customer service. So, do you want to achieve your business targets? You need to empower the people. There is no way around it, as simple as that.

Mona Seleim:

Yeah, looks like a great journey to be part of if they see it from beginning to end. Well, you can tell… I mean, yeah, go ahead?

Elias Mansour:

This is where we can support them. This is why we exist as a Great Place to Work.

Mona Seleim:

So, to that point, I want to know what can Great Place to Work offer that would make your company actually be great?

Elias Mansour:

So, Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture because it covers many sectors or lines of works in one place. We have the recognition, the tool, the research framework, the benchmark, and the culture coaching all in one mission. Across industries, we have about 30 years of data and research to demonstrate what work culture looks like. We give leaders and organizations the insight, the recognition, and the tools to create a consistently positive work experience. We do put the employee at the heart of our model, and we use our Trust Index survey to listen to them through our platform Emprising! So, we start by listening to the employees, looking at the results with the support of the culture coach, and at the same time recognizing the organizations for all the efforts they’re making to create a better work environment. And we can talk more about it in terms of the model and the different offerings that we have at Great Place to Work.

Mona Seleim:

Great, and can you give like sort of like examples to that?

Elias Mansour:

Sure! So, the Great Place to Work model is focused more on employees’ relationships, building the relationships, rather than just assessing behaviors. It’s about measuring and building the level of trust, pride, and camaraderie, and creating a high trust culture rather than just focusing and ticking boxes on the engagement and participation rate. And it covers the whole organization system from leaders, managers, employees, different departments… So, speaking about the process, after they do the Trust Index survey, they are eligible for the certification. The Great Place to Work certification recognizes employers who create an outstanding employee experience. It’s a smooth process with a two-step perspective. Because employee feedback is independent, the certification is a reference for new joiners and job seekers to identify which companies are genuinely a Great Place to Work company. The certification also gives the employers a recruiting advantage by providing a globally recognized verification of Great employee experience. We don’t stop at the certification level. We want to push employers to become one of the best. So, the listing. We have a dozen of Best Workplaces lists, where all the certified companies compete to become one of the best. And from startups to the world’s largest multinational companies, we acknowledge the best workplace in culture, and we recognize them in all sizes, industries, all around the world. Of course, all of that takes place our very powerful tool Emprising. Our high trust, high performance tool Emprising. It plays a key path to building a distinct work culture after serving the employees anonymously, of course. And, we map the findings and compare them to unparalleled benchmarks to know how to optimize the approach to become one of the best on all the different listings. And finally, I wouldn’t say finally, but one major division at Great Place to work is the culture coaching. And this is where we are working across all levels of the organizations, the teams will support this specific company in creating a data-driven approach that leverages culture to meet and exceed the business goals. So, the result would be change sustainable, high trust and high performance.

Mona Seleim:

And what comes with the culture coaching? I mean, how does the journey continue after that?

Elias Mansour

There are a lot of additional services that we can look at based on the findings of every organization. So, coaching, content, annual summit… and a lot of additional services we can look at from culture coaching perspective and culture coaching support. It’s a major department at Great Place to Work. We begin looking at your findings and create different focus groups where we sit with organizations and listen more in order to be able to provide you with an advisory, an action plan, and how to move to the next cycle with more clarity basing on more data and focusing on the specific areas that need improvement. Speaking to you Mona, you are the director of Culture coaching at Great Place to Work. I believe you can add a lot more to that specific point. So, I would like to ask you to tell us more about these services.

Mona Seleim:

Yeah, I mean that area in specific for me is gold! Because, if someone can know how to invest and where to put their money in the right places instead of overspending on resources that go to waste- so I can create a lot of initiatives and all a lot of engagements, but it’s not impactful because it’s still scattered. So, I think what’s beautiful about Emprising is that it tells you specifically you need to work on this focus area, so let’s focus for example on camaraderie: how can we get your people to work more collaboratively. And, then it’s not just about doing it as one team building exercise, it’s like how does it continue in the belief system that you were talking about earlier so that it’s someone someone’s everyday practice, this is what they are experiencing: camaraderie. Once we have that in place, you can move on to something else and that that’s when your journey continues. I think that’s the beauty of it from beginning to end, having it from the moment of certification to the moment of understanding your people through these focus groups and then implementing a whole action plan that you have in mind and then seeing your score. I mean the other thing that we do is pulse index surveys. So, once they finish the journey, they can actually do a test internally, see how the waters are like and then do their evaluation again so you know what to expect when you actually do the survey again, so it’s quite interesting.

Elias Mansour:

You said it! It’s a journey. It start with listening to your employees, assessing your work culture through the trust index survey using the powerful tool Emprising, moving to the recognition part because we need to recognize your efforts and you need to position yourself as an employer of choice because you are a hero, you are doing a lot of efforts to create this work environment, this vibrant work environment for your employees. And then, we look at the results to see where are the spaces for you to improve, to become one of the best. We come back and we do the pulse survey and then we see how to optimize moving forward. So, through that journey, the companies have the support of all the different divisions, and this is what I like about Great Place to Work. Every department will be there to support you with the support of course of the whole organization.

Intermission:

You are listening to Behind the Greatness! a podcast series about workplace culture brought to you by Great Place to Work Middle East. If you think that your organization is a Great Place to Work, reach out to us on our website, www.greatplacetowork.me to start your journey with us. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at GPTW ME.

Mona Seleim:

So yeah, moving on, you know, tell us more cases about real Great Place to Work companies that have actually set milestones for you?

Elias Mansour

You will cause me some issues with the clients that I will not mention… I’ll try to mention everyone! No, actually everyone is mentioned on our website under certified organizations. Looking at all the different organizations, I can think, for example, of Sunset hospitality and how they implemented the approach across all the different brands. They are one of the leading companies in the hospitality field and looking of how their Chief people officer Rania celebrated with all the different brands moving around the brands for one month celebrating their achievement… it was just inspiring for me! Another major example would be Chalhoub Group. They are for example one of the major leaders in terms of work culture. Speaking of the work culture, they are never satisfied with where they are, they always tend to want to improve and they are inspiring with the innovative ideas that they have and the approaches, year after year, they are today one of the top five best workplaces in the UAE and in the region and they do use Emprising to look at the findings and the data and use it for their people strategies. Another example that I would like to speak about, and I would like to hear more from you Mona about it because it was an inspiring case for Great Place to Work and a successful case would be SIWA. Can you tell us more about your experience with SIWA?

Mona Seleim:

So SIWA was very, very interesting because as we started our focus groups, we actually got people to talk more? I don’t think we had that comfort level at the beginning, but once they started talking, we had so much information to take on board to actually start implementing and I think that was the starting point for SIWA. Another inspiring one was actually Nakheel! They have been on the row taking the information from focus groups, taking the information from the insights that we got from Emprising and adapting to change instantly like as soon as we’re hearing something from the people they’re actually putting it in place! So, it’s so inspirational to see a company that doesn’t wait too long to actually make the change happen because they know that it’s going to actually have a return on their investments and increase productivity. It’s like on the go! and the final one, my god was FIVE! FIVE hotels were so inspirational. I mean, the Managing Director has it all. He knows exactly about the people, what’s moving them, how to challenge them, to actually be innovative and be part of the change and enabling them. He’s an enabler. You can do whatever you want to do on the ground. So, it’s listening and seeing these kinds of engagements that happen between people within an organization that makes it so effective. And then you can instantly see it in in the scores that they’re actually giving.

Elias Mansour:

And the list doesn’t stop here Mona! We have a lot of case studies, a lot of major organizations who are creating these efforts to change the work culture, using the findings, emphasizing on implementing them, aiming for impacts, for results. And, this is the beauty about Emprising and Great Place to Work. It’s not important to have 1000 initiatives, it’s more about what is impactful for your people. I can think of AstraZeneca. I can think of a lot of organizations that we have: Centena for example, we can talk about McDonald’s, G42. We can talk about Maersk, we can talk about Leminar, we can talk about a lot- Metropolitan group! If I want to start naming them, I will need the full day. But of course, I would like to invite everyone to go to the website and to check all the certified organizations and to reach out to us if they have questions, to know more about the process, how we can support them, what are the success stories…

Mona Seleim:

Fantastic! Okay! Well, thank you so much Elias for your time today, I think it was really, really informative for us and looking forward to more podcast episodes.

Elias Mansour:

Thank you so much Mona and looking forward to the same.

Mona Seleim:

So, if you’d like to get in touch with us and you think that your organization is a Great Place to work, please visit us on our website: greatplacetowork.me and follow us on our social media accounts. Great Place to Work ME.