Shifting Your Workplace Culture By Bringing Your Values to Life: How One Company Re-Energized Their Workplace
AFA JCDecaux is the largest outdoor advertising company in the world, with offices in more than 59 countries. A huge success by many measures, the company had nevertheless lost its mojo a few years ago.
When I met with CEO Kim Axelson in his Copenhagen, Denmark boardroom, the first thing I noticed was the welcoming plate of fresh food and delicious-looking danishes (Hey, I was hungry. And who wouldn’t want to eat a Danish danish?). The second thing I noticed was the bright yellow sign on the meeting room wall adorned with the text: “Blah blah blah… ACT NOW!” Clearly, this was a place of action.
Axelson vibrated with energy as he shared the company’s success story and explained how they hit the reset button and revitalized their workplace culture in a mere four months: “That sign says it all! If you just get off your duff and commit to action great things can happen!”
So how did they shake things up?
They started by revamping their company values from the ground up — employees created the values themselves, ensuring immediate buy-in from everyone. They came up with four values:
- Teamwork
- Create positivity
- Show a fighting spirit
- Create humor
To turn those words into action, the company honed in on one value each week, asking every employee to embrace and champion the “value of the week” as passionately as possible, cycling through the four and then repeating the process for six months. By encouraging an intensive, all-hands-on-deck approach, they hoped the values would become better understood and completely ingrained into everyone’s behaviors.
The results spoke for themselves: absenteeism rates dropped by 30%; employee retention rates improved by 25%. Axelson said that within only four months — before they had even finished their six-month process — things were different. Substantially different.
“We became a new company!” Axelson said, grinning ear to ear. “This stuff is simple. You just need to do it, and give people the freedom to act with passion and to act immediately when they have a great idea!”
A central part of the cultural shift involved a dedicated effort to infuse the workplace with more humor. Signs and posters with slogans reading, “We want YOU to have fun” and life-sized posters of happy business people reminded everyone to lighten up. A squadron of employees went so far as to visit employees’ homes one Sunday, leaving signs and stickers reminding them to find the humor in their lives.
Back in the office, celebratory walls were created featuring photos of employees when they were born, during their wedding, and doing fun things in their spare time. Computers were rigged to start up with a humorous message. Random, spontaneous fun breaks were injected into the workplace that included Salsa dancing lessons and a contest to eat the most dessert with employees’ hands tied behind their backs. Team competitions, family celebrations, and raving company testimonials in the internal newsletter all helped infuse a spirit of playfulness in the company.
As a simple way to gauge the mood in their main office and to remind people they had the power to choose their attitude, Plexiglas boxes were installed throughout the office. As employees went about their work day, they would drop in either a green rubber ball if they were feeling great about things, or a red ball if things weren’t so good. A quick scan of the boxes gave managers an instant office mood barometer. If an employee sees a colleague place a few red balls in a container, others rally around to see if they can do anything to help.
This is a great example of how a workplace re-energized their workplace culture, and relatively quickly, simply by being intentional and translating their values into action!
Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame speaker who researches, writes, and speaks about inspiring workplace cultures, inspiring leaders, and business that put humor to work to drive outrageous workplace results. Michael is known as one of North America’s leading experts on workplace culture. He is also the author of 8 books, including, “Hire, Inspire and Fuel Their Fire,” “The Jerk-Free Workplace,” and “The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are laughing All the Way to the Bank.” To find out how Michael can help you re-energize your workplace, schedule an appointment here or send an email to mike@mikekerr.com.
