PAPERmaking! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY Volume 2, Number 2, 2016
Building a Growth Culture Everything began with the emerging Solenis culture. Solenis is grounded in a strong heritage that includes Ashland Water Technologies, Betz Laboratories, Drew, Stockhausen and Hercules. While that heritage comes with a number of benefits, it also encourages employees to embrace legacy brands and belief systems. According to Jeff Fulgham, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, “There was a lot of debate about the kind of company we should be, even the name we should use. Some people wanted to go back to Hercules, but we felt strongly that we needed a new name. It gave us a chance to start fresh.” Beyond the name itself, starting fresh meant creating a single unified culture with common goals and values. Driven by Solenis President and Chief Executive Officer John Panichella’s vision of an organisation commercially focused around customers, the company embarked on an intensive culture-building initiative built on 12 core beliefs organised around three priorities – People, Performance and Results. Every belief is driven by experiences that support that belief, which in turn cultivates behaviours and actions to drive results. The culture work began in September 2014, soon after the new company was formed, and by June 2015, the core beliefs were vetted and approved. By October, the company began broadcasting videos – 72 in all, with scripts translated into nine languages – featuring employees who could share experiences directly tied to each of the beliefs. A series of surveys have since measured the pulse of the Solenis employee population, and participation rates have been as high as 93 percent. The ultimate goal, however, is not simple participation but acceptance and internalisation. As Katy Abernathy, Director, Global Marketing and Business Communications, points out, “Safety is a metaphor we use all of the time. We are one of the safest organisations in our industry, thanks to a conscious and deliberate campaign we have executed over the years. Now, safety is part of the daily routine of our employees. That’s where we want to be with the Solenis corporate culture.” Even though there is still work to do on the culture front, the progress has been impressive. In fact, speed and agility have been equally important watchwords. Consider that the new Solenis organisation began with no HR department, no financial officer and no IT infrastructure. Some companies can take a year or longer to get these new functions established and staffed, but Solenis was able to do it all in just a few months. One of the biggest accomplishments was establishing a robust recruitment and training program to attract and retain talent. According to Iris Melendez, Director of Global Talent Management, Solenis put some stopgap recruitment measures in place to keep the organisation moving forward. “That got us from point A to point B,” Melendez notes. “Now we have a recruiting manager in place, and we’re somewhere between point B and point C – looking at recruitment with totally fresh eyes, figuring out how we want it to work in the new Solenis culture. Same thing with training: We stopped training in the transition from Ashland, but now we’ve launched an extensive global leadership curriculum, as well as a global sales curriculum, and we’re investing heavily in the professional development of all our employees.”
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Article 7 – Solenis
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