When the Corporate Culture Goes Wrong
How Domino’s handled its recent food-preparation scandal perpetrated by two employees was not in itself a bad example of crisis management, says Mallen Baker in an Ethical Corporation story, “but the damage to the reputation has been done, and the company is pondering how to reassure customers that such things cannot happen in their kitchens again.”
So how should any company — especially one with lower-paid workers that are likely not committed to a long-term career there — build a values-driven culture of commitment to great service? The answer involves empowering employees to take more responsibility, says Baker:
People need to know why their jobs are important, that they can be part of the team improving the experience for customers, and that they are rewarded for projecting the company’s shared values in the workplace. It would take time and persistence and leadership.
The problem is — as with any controversy covered and hyped by the media and online social communities — the public wants answers now: How are you going to prevent another incident like this from happening? Enter “punitive measures,” which may “intuitively feel good, but don’t work and simply serve to poison the corporate culture,” says Baker.
Instead, companies should begin with a simple question: What is wrong with the corporate culture in our company that such a thing could happen? As Baker says, such an approach “might lead to some very different answers about what comes next.”
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