What We Do
From in-depth culture assessment to highly engaged strategic planning, your partners in Peterson & Perme Associates have a unique set of skills to address your organizational and leadership development needs.
Peterson & Perme Associates provides the following consulting services:
High Engagement Strategic Planning
- A strong mission, along with a full vision and well-defined values can provide clear direction for your employees, as well as a precise view of what your organization stands for.
- We provide highly engaged strategic planning with staff and stakeholders alike to identify your strategic goals and near-term tactical plans.
- Through small and large group facilitation, we help you align your organization to your strategic plan for successful implementation.
- We can successfully facilitate your strategic planning process virtually or in-person!
CASE STUDY:
Planning for a Strong Future Direction
In a recent project, the Command Staff of a suburban police department recognized they would have a lot of leadership changes in the next 5 years. They wanted to create strong direction and develop leaders for succession by updating their mission, providing a clear vision, and defining their core values. They asked us to help them develop a strategic plan starting with an assessment of their workplace culture. That ultimately informed the leadership on their need to provide a unified message to staff. Through high employee engagement, the entire agency was included in the planning process; all employees additionally had the chance to help shape the goals of the department over the next 3 years. As a result, agency leaders were more united in their communication to staff and went forward with well-defined targets for department development.
Culture Assessment & Roadmaps for Change
- Your organizational culture is the ultimate determinant of how employees are expected to act with each other, your customers, and the public in regard to the work they do. We help you build a culture inside that creates the outcomes you want outside!
- We help you examine your organizational culture and create roadmaps for sustained change. Using research-based tools from Human Synergistics, we can measure and gain a common language around the values and norms (or “unwritten rules”) driving the current behaviors and outcomes in organizations.
CASE STUDIES:
Avoiding “Cultural Indigestion” in Mergers and Acquisitions
We conducted a study for a multi-national US company that had acquired three companies in the UK. It was trying to decide to what extent to integrate these companies. They had already done the financial and product assessments, but felt that the cultures of all three companies were so different they wondered if integration would work. We assessed the current and ideal cultures of all three companies, and consulted with the executives from all three companies about the potential impact of integration. We also provided a process to overcome cultural hurdles if consolidation was decided. The net impact of this work was that the company decided to merge two of the three organizations, and focused on creating a new culture that matched the ideal of both companies.
Speeding Implementation of New Directions
In one specific project, the executives of an IT organization had spent 3-4 years trying to implement a new strategic direction, and were frustrated at the slow pace of implementation and the amount of resistance they received. They thought that perhaps their culture was impeding forward movement, and commissioned us to assess not only their culture but their organizational effectiveness as well. What we found was that (a) decision-making processes did not support the culture they wanted to create, (b) more attention needed to be paid to cross-training, individual performance planning, and feedback, and (c) more investment needed to be made in product development tools and processes.
Leadership Development
- As a manager, your impact on your employees, whether you are a mid-level supervisor or a top executive, can make a difference in the effectiveness and efficiency of your organization. Through our many tools (including 360° assessments), we can help you develop your ability in coaching employees, being more strategic, and building a more cohesive team.
- Every level of management and leadership comes with a new set of responsibilities which require more training, which many organizations do not provide. The way that managers work with employees to align individual performance with organizational goals can either build motivation or defensiveness. We can help you both create an effective system for performance management, while helping your managers build capacity and coach for accountability.
CASE STUDY:
Developing Future Leaders
A 360° professional development tool was used to jump-start a mid-line employee’s development as he prepared to apply for upcoming promotional processes within his department. The assessment examined his work style in two ways: through observations from a dozen of this peers and associates, as well as through his own perspective. Through this eye-opening process, this employee was able to develop an actionable plan for his professional development based on the gaps between his intentions at work and how others were perceiving his behaviors. This opened the door for a candid conversation between this employee and his top supervisor, giving both an opportunity to clarify expectations and needs within their working relationship.
Helping Leaders Create a Constructive Culture
A police department was experiencing internal conflict, affecting employee morale, teamwork, and their ability to successfully engage in community policing. This also effected how services were performed and how the community perceived the police department. A survey was done to determine the issues and problems; clear expectations at all levels of the organization were a large contributor to the agency’s difficulties. As a result, all managers in the chain of command were given leadership and management coaching and training, clear expectations were put in place, and everyone in the department received community policing training. Within a year, the department’s internal conflicts lessened, teamwork improved, and the police department received a National Community Policing award. The success of the department continues through focus on effective management and leadership to create and maintain a constructive work culture.
Process Improvement
- Burdensome reporting requirements and complex paperwork issues can drain the energy from your employees and create havoc within the organization.
- We provide facilitation and expertise to help you streamline burdensome processes and free-up valuable employee time for what really matters.
- We believe in building capacity – we train groups on how to do process improvement, which includes helping them through their own hands-on example to apply the tools and methods.
CASE STUDY:
Empowering Employees to Improve Processes
Leaders of a suburban city recognized the need to incorporate Lean process improvement into their work after completing a culture assessment, to create more opportunities for efficiency and effectiveness. We trained a cross-functional group of employees to use the principles of process improvement, a variety of Lean tools and methods, and how to guide teams through improvement efforts. Despite the bulk of this training taking place over Zoom during the pandemic, the team was able to apply what they learned to their work and immediately started improving processes with others, from home!
Here’s what the Director championing this work had to say:
“I have worked with Peterson & Perme Associates, LLC (PPA) for about two years as they have helped our organization move our culture from what our employees currently experience, to how our employees desire the work culture to feel and behave.
PPA has provided our staff with training in Process Improvement, which will allow them to engage all of the different processes we have in place and determine how to make them more effective and efficient. Along the way we ran into bumps in the road with COVID and virtual meetings. PPA always had patience and understanding to pivot and find new ways to engage staff.
When PPA needed more time to help staff understand a topic, they spent the extra time without worrying about whether or not it was “in the budget.” They went the extra mile because they cared and wanted to help staff be successful in building their confidence to utilize process improvement methods.”
Eric Carlson – Parks & Recreation Director
Eliminating Wasted Time
The facilities maintenance department of a large urban school district was under the gun to improve their productivity and reduce their backlog of repairs for an aging infrastructure. Staffed by 56 skilled tradespeople in 11 different trades and represented by 14 different unions, cross-functional teams were necessary to shape new systems and processes. A time study showed almost half their time was spent in “white space” – i.e. unproductive time spent deciphering paperwork, locating information, and chasing down parts. The results of this successful implementation effort included real-time access to inventory and project information, a reduction of “white space,” and a new culture of teamwork, transparency, and customer service.
“We valued their insight and support, and their willingness to provide an objective view.”
— Client Feedback
Employee Wellness
- Supporting your employees in healthy work practices is vital to the retention of your staff and we can help you cultivate a realistic and practical approach.
- Building resilience within your employees under stressful conditions is also an area which can improve the efficiency of your company.
- We provide strategy and coaching to embed healthy habits into everyday work life. We strive to utilize methods which fit your workplace best.
Employee wellness is the health of the person inside and outside of the workplace. It is about the organization AND the individual focusing on whole wellbeing together: physical, mental, spiritual, professional, and financial. When wellness is supported in these zones, resilience is increased, the working environment improves, and the ability to make meaning of one’s circumstances is strengthened. Together, these factors create a productive, efficient, and encouraging workplace culture while extending wellbeing into home life.
Our Employee Wellness Model
