Changing Organizational Culture During a Global Crisis

• In Event: Employee Engagement — Enhancing, Sustaining, Transforming

Short Description

Planned changes in organizational culture are often put on hold during a crisis as attention and effort shift to addressing and surviving the predicament. This presentation will offer insight into how a U.S. government agency changed its culture during the global financial crisis, nearly doubling its workforce and becoming “a best place to work.”

Detailed Abstract

According to research, organizational change management initiatives have a high rate of failure with some estimates as high as 70% (Crouzet, Parker, & Pathak, 2014; Parker, Charlton, Ribeiro & Pathak, 2013). In 2016 a Deloitte survey of 7000 business and human resources leaders indicated that having the right culture gives an organization a strategic advantage (Kambil, 2016). However, only 19% of the respondents believed that their own enterprise possessed such a culture (Kambil, 2016).

When Sheila Bair assumed the Chairmanship of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in June 2006 she found the agency’s workforce to be mistrustful and demoralized. Her observations were confirmed by the results of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (a survey voluntarily administered to the employees of all federal agencies) which placed the FDIC near the bottom of the mid-sized agency list of best places to work in the federal government. Under Bair’s leadership, the agency dramatically changed its culture rising to the top of the list in 2011 and staying there for the last five years.

The FDIC is an independent agency of the US government that provides deposit insurance and regulatory oversight for a significant number community banks across the United States and its territories. The FDIC is typically named as the receiver of failed US banks. Shortly after beginning a culture change initiative in 2007, the agency was confronted with the global financial crisis resulting in a significant impact on the organization and its resources. With global liquidity freezing up and hundreds of US banks in jeopardy, Bair could have abandoned the culture change initiative due to the significant increase in bank supervision and receivership workload.

This presentation, speaks to changing organizational culture in times of crisis by outlining the steps the FDIC took as it simultaneously addressed the financial crisis and nearly doubled its workforce. Specifically, the presentation will speak not only to how the leaders and employees changed the agency culture but also the ongoing initiatives that ensure a healthy culture is maintained.

Participant

• J. Basil Read, Indiana Tech