Instilling a big company culture in a small enterprise

Citation

Buchanan, I. (2009), "Instilling a big company culture in a small enterprise", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2009.37208aab.006

Instilling a big company culture in a small enterprise

Article Type: HR at work From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 8, Issue 1

Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in HR

Isla BuchananIsla Buchanan is general manager at Hello Scotland.

It is a strange thing about life – if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. And if you can persuade the people around you of the validity and value of your ambitions, they will very often scramble to share the dream. The trouble with many small companies is that they think small. There is no reason for this. All big, successful companies were once bit players. What made them big was the ability to think like big companies.

I was acutely aware of the philosophical and strategic differences between large and small companies because most of my working life in marketing and events management has been with UK national companies, such as Unipart. When I came to Hello Scotland in 2002, now a thriving destination management company based in Glasgow, it was tiny by comparison with three employees, including me. But it had big ambitions, and that meant that making a difference was possible.

Putting in place a framework for growth

Many small employers are so hard pressed by the day-to-day demands of keeping the business afloat that the wellbeing, input and involvement of staff is of minimal importance. In response, staff default to the “nothing to do with me, I just work here” attitude. At Hello Scotland, however, it has always been our aim to instill the big company corporate culture and loyalty into the enterprise even though we are, by any standards, a small firm that currently employs seven people and turns over £2.2million. There is no reason why people cannot be treated with respect and consideration. This is not simple altruism. The quid pro quo is that the team’s interests are aligned with the management’s and team members have a vested interest in seeing the company become successful and profitable. Everybody wins.

The main issue that arose in the early days was that, although we had a good product and terrific enthusiasm, there was a serious lack of a cohesive structure. This resulted in a lack of direction with everyone trying to do everything. Without a goal or destination you do not know where to start the journey for improvement and expansion. Since my background was in major corporates, I began implementing the kind of structures these successful organizations have honed and developed over many years. They employ these structures for a reason, and they are as effective for 3,000 people as for three. It made so much sense to me that if we created a big company culture now, then when we became bigger the same systems would serve our purposes right through the growth period.

Working to a standard

You cannot do this sort of thing on the back of an envelope. You need a framework and I was very impressed with the balanced and cohesive nature of Investors in People (IIP) – a standard developed to help organizations improve the way they work by investing in their people. It is an arduous process but it is worthwhile in that it clearly lays down what you need to do and how it should flow together. We investigated some others, such as Investors in Excellence and ISOs, but it seemed they were almost creating work for the sake of it. IIP and what we took from it delivered tangible benefits in involving the entire team in strategic decision-making and opening up lines of communication. As a result, we first achieved the standard in 2004 and have been re-awarded it in 2007, being cited as an excellent example of best business practice.

The team was empowered to contribute more and to ask why we were doing things in particular ways. That, in turn, allows full and transparent explanation of processes and valuable input into a package that everyone understands. It also helped us as management to realize that communication goes two ways. It is not just about telling people what to do.

The biggest challenge was the amount of paperwork we had to deal with – such as the comprehensive employee handbook, which far exceeded the IIP requirements for a company of our size. With help from local enterprise agencies, we listed all the rights and responsibilities that the team needed to know about, such as job description, conditions of employment, a general awareness of health and safety, accident reports, sickness and absence policy, private health care, performance management procedures and our training policy.

Thinking like a large organization

As far as training is concerned, we make the team aware of what is available and staff members are encouraged to bring ideas to us that could benefit them personally or the company as a whole. Our only preference is that the courses are around Glasgow. Another departure from the small company way of doing things was the implementation of an inclusive business plan. Rather than this being imposed from the top, we engaged in a major brainstorming to mesh the concepts of where the company was going.

Also for the sake of clarity and to facilitate training, we created a procedures manual, which formalizes every process we do, from when a client contacts us through to winning the contract, progressing the contract, hosting the event and getting customer feedback. It is continually updated using standard templates and the employees have full input. It is now a crucially important source of reference.

One of the main similarities with bigger companies is the way Hello Scotland structures its salary review process. Team members set key performance indicators for themselves in agreement with the management. Ten areas are identified for each employee – five related to the business plan and five additional “stretch” goals for both personal and business development. A 5 percent salary rise is awarded on completion of the tasks in the business plan and a further 1 percent for each of the stretch goals achieved, giving a potential 10 percent pay rise each year. All rises are dependent on the company meeting turnover targets, but this has not been difficult since turnover has been rising year on year and is expected to continue to do so.

Each member of the team is also given a laptop and a mobile phone and company cars are provided for senior project managers and above. Frequent incentive trips take the team to places as diverse as Nice, Barcelona, Lanzarote and Las Vegas.

A happy and contented team

The benefits of having these “big firm” processes and procedures in place are both tangible and intangible. On the most basic issue of how it affects profits, there are clear saving to be made in staff retention. In more than four years, no one has left, which means there has been no cost attached to retraining or agency recruitment, which is an expensive business these days.

Less financially measurable but equally important is the happiness of the team and that is reflected in the way they work with clients. Because the team is fun to work with, some 50 percent of our clients are repeat business, which is remarkably high in a business dealing with incentive travel. You would not, after all, expect incentive trips to go to the same country year after year, but that is what our team is achieving.

If the notion of big company motivation within a small company structure has achieved anything for Hello Scotland, it has been the creation of the team and its melding into a cohesive, efficient, innovative and mutually supportive unit. This is quite a stressful job in many ways. There are long hours and frequent weekend work, which can impinge on your social and personal life. No team could do that and be satisfied and productive unless it cared about the job. Because we continually motivate and incentivize each individual, it keeps them happy in their dealings with the clients and keeps the clients coming back. They know we can do it if we do it together.

About the author

Isla Buchanan is general manager at Hello Scotland. With a history in marketing and internal events management for Unipart and other national companies, she has helped to develop Hello Scotland into a fast growing organization over the last six years. She can be contacted at: isla@helloscotland.com