Culture Survey Re-measure

Case Study

Culture Survey Re-measure

Leadership, Team & Culture
Organisation Improvement

The Royal Flying Doctor Service South Australia & Northern Territory (RFDS SA/NT) provides extensive primary health care and 24-hour emergency aeromedical services to people across South Australia and Northern Territory. It has over 370 staff and delivers the finest care to someone every 10 minutes.

The Leadership Team recognised that one of the keys to its future success was building a culture that could assist the organisation transition from its proud history to a more competitive sector that was changing rapidly through government tendering and more private sector competition and involvement. There was a critical need for change to ensure the RFDS SA/NT could not only survive but thrive through these changing times.

Why they approached us

In 2019 the BRS team implemented a Leadership Development Plan that commenced with the Human Synergistics Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) and Organisational Effectiveness Inventory (OEI) to measure the culture within the organisation.

At the time, the organisation had recently transitioned to a new Chief Executive and was also coming into a period of having to retender for a range of services it had provided for decades prior. From 2019 to 2022, the BRS team has facilitated multiple workshops, planning sessions and undertook many coaching sessions with individuals across all levels of executive and management at RFDS SA/NT. In late 2022 a re-measure using the above diagnostic tools was undertaken to determine the change in culture since the leadership and culture work had commenced.

Issue 1 - Commitment to building a constructive culture. Ensuring all leaders understood RFDS SA/NT commitment to building a desired culture and their role in driving it

Issue 2 - Attraction and retention of staff. Given the health and aviation sectors that RFDS SA/NT operates in, it was critical given that there was a focus on its people

Issue 3 - Development of people, putting a strong focus on developing people at all levels

Issue 4 - Empowerment of staff. Moving from managing and controlling to empowering staff at all levels through the facilitation of a safe and constructive environment

BRS solution:

The results from the re-measure exceeded all expectations, and what made them more outstanding was that they were achieved through COVID-19 which was particularly challenging given the industry and environment that they operate in. The diagnostic tools demonstrated the following:

120% improvement in the Constructive behavioural norms
35% reduction in the Passive/Defensive norms
41% reduction in Aggressive/Defensive norms
36% increase in employee empowerment
29% increase in feedback
26% increase in fairness of appraisals
Increases across all outcomes at the individual, group and organisational levels with particularly strong improvement in motivation, clarity and teamwork/coordination

Case Study