Creating a framework to nurture culture in a growing organization

An international content marketing agency headquartered in London, Cedar Communications opened its Hong Kong office in 2015 to help brands tell their stories more effectively in the Asia-Pacific region. Working with leading Hong Kong-based companies such as Cathay Pacific and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, as well as a growing client base in mainland China, Cedar HK is poised to expand its operations with the goal of becoming the leading voice in content marketing in Asia. 

Entering a high-growth phase is not devoid of challenges however, and one area that Cedar HK was keen to tackle is how to sustainably nurture their company culture as they grow. 

“A core part of our vision is also being an agency that is a great place to work, and to nurture a creative, supportive environment where our people can create, innovate and thrive,” says Cedar HK’s Content Director, Mark Tjhung. “As agencies grow though, maintaining a workplace culture can become more difficult. We’ve always been conscious of, and constantly look for, ways in which we can reinforce our working culture.”

Building a great culture has been at the heart of Cedar’s workplace philosophy from day one, with the company exploring various initiatives to improve communication, engagement, and team dynamics within their 40-strong team. These include weekly huddles, call outs for great work, and office socials, as well as carrying out in-depth DISC training sessions. 

Although some of these initiatives helped in the short-term, the positive effects rarely lasted more than a few weeks. And once the pandemic hit and remote working entered the equation, it became even more important for Cedar to understand their team members’ needs at a much deeper level. 

Cedar HK’s projects include revamped internal communications for Swire, digital discovery for Cathay Pacific, and a new content platform for Mandarin Oriental.

Identifying Motivational Needs

Introduced to Attuned by a former colleague, Tjhung was intrigued by the idea of measuring intrinsic motivation and decided to try it out. “Given our previous experience with workplace tools, we were interested in exploring the platform,” he says. “We saw a lot of potential for being able to gauge the feeling of the workplace—and showing us what that was through real data.”

During the first few months, Cedar tried it out within a small test group, with positive results. They especially liked how tailored it was to a workplace setting, which, according to Tjhung, “made it feel immediately relevant to our context and the dynamics that we were looking to work on.” Prior to the full rollout, team managers at Cedar underwent one-on-one training sessions organized by Attuned to help them understand the platform’s capabilities so that they could maximize its benefits.

Using Attuned sparked several key changes within the company. The first was for the management to align themselves better with the needs of the Hong Kong team at the height of the pandemic. Discovering that Cedar HK’s two highest motivators were Status (a need for reputation, recognition, respect and continuous progress through the ranks) and Financial Needs (a desire for financial security and ample remuneration), they confidently prioritized initiatives around fulfilling these needs. 

Empowering Teams Through Data

Unusually, Cedar chose to empower each of their employees by assigning everyone the role of ‘Manager’ within Attuned, thus giving everyone open access to all the data.

“One of the features that we thought could have lasting value for our team was the communication tips to help interpersonal motivator gaps. For all members of our team to benefit from this, we had to make everybody a ‘Manager’. This gave everyone the ability to see how they fit into the overall office profile, to focus on any relationships or gaps that were relevant to them, and to think about any actions they wanted to take completely anonymously. We think this empowered our team to be able to use Attuned in their own way rather than as a purely management tool.”

Indeed, this approach will be an option for all users in a soon-to-be-released Attuned feature called the ‘My Motivator Page’, which will provide access to motivator data at an individual level and allow teams to take a more democratic approach. This will also make it easier to obtain employee buy-in and encourage the co-creation of culture as opposed to a more prescriptive top-down approach. 

Transparency in Career Progression 

Attuned also helped Cedar to reevaluate how career progression takes place within the company, which was formerly more organically determined. After implementing Attuned, the team was able to craft a more structured and transparent process for career progression. 

“Attuned has really helped us in identifying and prioritizing the work we need to do for our workplace culture,” says Tjhung. “On the back of Attuned, we’ve developed a more structured plan—including career progression documents—which provide more transparency and understanding to how these things happen at Cedar.”

In addition, Tjhung notes that the feedback from the Cedar team on using Attuned has also been encouraging. “From our team, the response has been very positive. The overall sentiment is that Attuned has helped them think about how to better communicate with colleagues, relate to certain points of view, and how other people operate.”

Sustaining Great Culture

Nurturing culture is a continued effort requiring everyone’s buy-in and engagement. Attuned factors this in by not only providing the insights, but also in-platform features and external support to help ensure consistent and long-term change.

“Attuned creates an ongoing relationship which is really appealing. This contrasted with the experiences we’ve had with other workshops and tools, where engagement in the moment and immediate aftermath were high, but faded quickly.”

To keep the momentum going, the team at Cedar uses Attuned’s pulse surveys, which allow them to see how sentiments change over time, which initiatives have worked, and which have not, giving them the ability to respond to changes and design initiatives that are relevant and effective. 

“I think one of the great things about Attuned is how it can work for any type of company. I can see the benefits for a very large company, and being able to take a macro view of how people are feeling and working. But equally, for a company like ours, it has helped us to empower each of our team members and see the big picture at the same time.”

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