Why company culture belongs in PR24

No water company would extract water without the means to transport it to where it was needed, and some assurance that the infrastructure for performing that task was broadly sound. So why does the price review process place so much emphasis on companies’ business plans without equally considering one very important – perhaps the most important – element of the company’s performance? I’m talking here about company culture.

In CCW’s objectives for the 2024 price review (PR24), we have a clear vision of the outcomes we want to see, and what we want to achieve in our work representing  everyone who uses water, now and in the future. One of these objectives is for water companies to show a ‘customer-first’ attitude and work to deliver a great customer experience. All this is rooted in company culture.

Culture drives many aspects of business performance and influences the decisions colleagues make every day – from the boardroom to the operational teams out in the field.

Strong company values that are embraced by all employees can help improve both customer and employee satisfaction. At PR24, we’re asking companies to show commitment to putting their customers first and demonstrate how they are developing a positive company culture. We’d like Ofwat to make this a requirement of all companies as part of its methodology for PR24.

Often when we talk about culture at PR24 we’re met with puzzled expressions: what does company culture have to do with a price review? In our view, it’s simple: the right culture ensures alignment with an organisation’s strategy, whereas the wrong culture will steer it off course. The critical role company culture plays in terms of health and safety has already been established and the links to excellent customer service already quantified, so it really is the magic ingredient to success. But you know this.

So why doesn’t company culture feature more strongly in our sector-wide conversations and processes? Is it because it’s hard to measure?

In the water sector we like measurement and targets. They drive performance and help ensure objective comparisons can be made. Measuring culture may be a little different but it can certainly be done. A good starting point is employee engagement surveys. Without motivated employees, everything else will be harder or impossible to achieve, and let’s face it – who wants to be miserable at work? So measuring employee satisfaction and tracking progress on improvements as part of the price review process would be a great start to increasing the emphasis on culture. And a greater focus on raising the bar for employee engagement across the sector can only help us attract the best talent that we need to tackle future challenges.

Another measure would be to look at the various accreditations that are available to measure community impact, something already done brilliantly by much of the sector.

These are just two ways that culture can be measured and are probably happening widely already, but should be formally rewarded through the price review, with a requirement to publish to ensure transparency.

As an industry, we’re great at focusing on the practical stuff – our comfort zone lies in the engineering, the process and the technicalities. But by developing our focus on culture and people – where perhaps we are a little less comfortable – it will also help us to build better relationships with the people we help, encourage them to trust us, and ultimately to help us address the demand challenge the sector faces.

As agencies, we all need to make culture part of our everyday conversations. Doing so will help to ensure that we are not using procedural changes to paper over the cracks when things go wrong and are ensuring that any change is durably implemented.

So can we agree to start talking a bit more about culture?