GIRI forum report: assessing corporate culture and its relationship to error

Delegates at GIRI's latest online forum agreed that corporate culture in relation to quality could be improved by using similar initiatives to those used to establish positive attitudes to safety. But with quality issues often taking time to become apparent, efforts to raise standards of work tend to be overtaken by the more immediate demands of cost and programme.  

The forum focussed on creating and maintaining a positive culture across the industry, with GIRI Training & Consultancy director Nick Francis leading a short lesson on how to identify the different aspects of organisational culture, and a discussion of the issues that members are facing as a result of COVID-19. 

The Johnson & Scholes cultural web was introduced as a tool for analysing corporate culture, and delegates were encouraged to consider the different elements of company culture such as power structures, symbols, stories & myths and routines & rituals, and identify how they relate to the work environment, or the values of a particular organisation. 

Online polls were used for a quick assessment of how well those present felt that their corporate culture supported safety, hitting deadlines and avoiding errors; while the first two scored highly, avoiding errors was notable in being scored at the lower end of the scale. 

Discussion ranged across the role that internal communication can play in establishing the right company culture and whether those at the top make it known that they are open to suggestions; the potential for rolling out safety initiatives to address attitudes to quality in a similar way; and the impact that procurement decisions can have on quality, including whether and how this impact is monitored internally and acted upon.

Weren't able to attend? You can watch the video of the event on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmaGtiYy1TA

The presentation slides are available to download from this link. 

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