Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 30.09.2024 
A new way to think about business culture
From “work-life balance” to “employee satisfaction”, we’re all familiar with the big business buzzwords – particularly now Gen Z has made workplace wellbeing a top priority. But what do these terms actually mean – and how can businesses truly achieve them?
Concerned with falling behind and losing top talent, 67% of leaders now place greater onus on fulfilling vague labels than they do on strategy or operations[1]. Nevertheless, with cultural efforts lacking in strategy and direction, they ultimately fail – the pressure to keep employees engaged and happy furthermore coming at the expense of profit and productivity.
At Culture15, we believe that, with so much technology at our disposal, there’s simply no need for the modern business to crumble under such dichotomy. Rather, it’s time we replaced notions of culture centred around subjective surveys on employee engagement with a more robust understanding of business culture – something our pioneering SaaS platform seeks to provide.
A SaaS-based approach
Founded in 2015 by our CEO, Charlie Coode, the Culture15 platform redefines business culture – not as loose concepts but as a set of tangible business behaviours. Each core behaviour is assigned a numerical score, allowing leaders to objectively assess where their company currently stands in terms of performance and culture. These scores can then be benchmarked against target levels, with the insight-driven actions created based on this improved understanding making it possible to close the gap between the two – something Culture15 refers to as closing the Culture Gap®.
International impact
Having assisted over 50 well-known organisations to gain better grasp of their business culture across 65 nations, ours is a truly international platform. In fact, our recently launched AI-verbatim feature, which translates written or spoken employee feedback into quantitative insights using the power of the latest and greatest in LLM technology, works in an impressive 26 languages – with more to follow! It’s a great way to maintain the human touch, ensuring employees maintain their voice in a way that’s truly impactful, not only heard.
Celebrating success
You only have to look at Culture15’s many satisfied, high-profile clients to appreciate the impact the platform can have. For instance, CEO of BMJ Group, Chris Jones, relied on the insights provided by Culture15 to create a new business strategy that would allow him to steer things in the right direction as he entered his new position. Prior to Culture15, BMJ Group found itself compromising between providing reliable resources on public health and turning a profit – but, thanks to the insights provided by the platform, Chris was able to create a strategy that allowed for both. BMJ Group has since thrived as a result.
A labour of love
It’s taken years of research, investment, and trial and error to develop, making our SaaS tool a real labour of love – a sentiment echoed by our in-house Product Manager, proud to have made it as finalist in the UK Business Tech Awards process: “It’s been a great challenge to build a software that enables such an intangible, fuzzy concept to be attributed to metrics and rigorously tracked, providing so much value for organisations around the globe.”
A significant milestone for Culture15
Proud of the journey the platform has made so far, CEO and Founder, Charlie Coode is delighted to have been shortlisted for SaaS Company of the Year, stating “I’m so proud that our team is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Recognition from the UK Business Tech Awards is a huge accolade and, with further developments in the pipeline, we can’t wait to share our progress with the world!”
We’d like to thank the UK Business Tech Awards for this wonderful opportunity and wish the best of luck to the other finalists as we eagerly anticipate results to be announced.
[1] According to PwC’s 2021 Global Culture Survey
