Establishment and promotion of an umbrella culture

ProAct was entrusted with the creation of a concept for developing a shared umbrella culture for the various subsidiaries of BKW Building Solutions. The concept relies on a participatory bottom-up approach to identify a shared purpose, develop unifying values, refine the Group’s identity and elaborate targeted measures for sustainable implementation. In the second phase, cultural development was expanded to include the aspect of diversity – along with targeted measures to raise awareness among managers and employees.

Background

BKW Building Solutions AG has grown inorganically over the past several years and now boasts a considerable network of companies: around 3,500 employees in more than 45 different subsidiaries provide services in the areas of building technology as well as information and communication technologies. A merger with swisspro has enabled BKW Building Solutions to position itself as one of the leading building technology groups in the Swiss market.

In this context, it has become apparent that there is a need to consolidate the heterogeneous environment within the Group by means of an overarching, coherent orientation as well as a shared identity and unifying values, so as to strengthen the sense of community. The creation of a shared umbrella culture for the BKW Building Solutions Group was therefore initiated on the basis of the corporate culture elements already in place – the vision and mission.

Our task

The aim is to support the development of a shared umbrella culture for the BKW Building Solutions Group that complements the strong existing corporate cultures of the subsidiaries. At its core, this shared culture is about defining the purpose (the “WHY”) and on this basis refining the identity of the BKW Building Solutions Group, as well as highlighting the values that connect the subsidiaries.

Key elements of the solution

A bottom-up approach has been used to prepare a broad cultural development concept that:

is based on thorough analysis and encompasses the design, implementation and evaluation of an online survey of around 350 employees regarding the topic of identity;
includes the preparation, moderation and follow-up of various workshops as well as a purpose quest to develop and refine the cultural essentials (purpose, identity and values);
features a roadmap with quick-wins and targeted measures for cultural development within the Group;
incorporates further development with the inclusion of diversity issues.

Roles of ProAct

Conceptual partner
Project leader
Implementation-oriented facilitator
Moderator of diversity workshops

Our roles