culture change - media company

In 2013 Fathom was engaged to help an iconic media company reset its culture. The business was navigating rough waters including a bloated cost structure, declining revenues, and a highly antagonistic unionized environment. Radical surgery was being done on the business model. Rounds of layoffs had reduced the workforce by hundreds. Employees were grieving the losses. A complex business retrenched into silos. Communication was virtually non-existent. The new CEO recognized that fixing the business model would be in vain if the employees would not or could not execute the new strategy. The culture had to be fixed.

A multi-faceted strategy was developed based on more than 100 employee interviews as well as market research. It was unveiled at an all-employee Town Hall. It was built on open, honest two-way communication and grounded in the business plan. Employees were challenged to become part of the solution. Following the Town Hall, a comprehensive plan was rolled out with regular updates given to employees. The strategy was entirely dependent on a multi-level, integrated communication plan.

Feedback was instant and sustained at the Town Hall itself and in calls and emails from employees. They felt that they had been heard. They said that they trusted the new CEO to tell them the truth. Two waves of employee surveys showed steady progress on the overall understanding of the business strategy and on almost all measures of engagement. Local sales results began to show steady improvement. One year after the first Town Hall, the COO of the parent company visited the market. After the first day he called and said: “I don’t know exactly what you did here, but this feels like a completely different place than when I last visited. People are smiling. There is an energy in the hallways that was never here before.”