 |
| Sarah Clayton |
Weber Shandwick and its United Minds management consultancy are offering companies a way to help assess and prepare for any cultural risks their organizations may face.
The initiative is the result of research the firm conducted in partnership with KRC Research that tracked the conditions most associated with cultural crises.
More than one in five of the 1,000 full-time employees surveyed (22 percent) said their company has recently been through such culture-related crises as top leadership being accused of significant wrongdoing or the company being criticized about sexual harassment or racist behavior. Almost a third (30 percent) say that they expect a cultural crisis to affect their companies in the next two years.
In addition, only 28 percent of respondents said their employers’ values and actions are aligned.
 |
To help companies get a handle on the threats they face, the Cultural Vigilance suite includes what it calls the Culture Risk Check, an auditing tool which assesses organizations against six key indicators predictive of cultural risk. Those six indicators are: inadequate investment in people; lack of accountability; lack of diversity, equity and inclusion; poor behavior at the top; high-pressure environments; and unclear ethical standards.
The Culture Risk Check gives companies a scorecard that assigns severity status to each indicator and helps boards and CEOs identify hotspots that need to be addressed before crisis strikes. In M&A situations, the tool helps acquiring companies understand the cultural issues they’re taking on and helps bring to light cultural compatibilities and incompatibilities between the two companies.
Cultural Vigilance then offers a roadmap geared toward lessening those risks. CulturePrep includes planning and training services to ensure the right processes, tools and capabilities are in place to manage through known cultural issues. CultureShift, the firm’s culture change methodology, aids organizations in nurturing the specific attitudes, beliefs and actions that support business strategy and guard against risk.
“It’s not enough for companies to go into action when crisis hits – organizations today need to shift from reactive reputation repair to proactive cultural auditing and constant preparedness, while ensuring they are fostering cultures that are in line with their stated values,” said Sarah Clayton, executive vice president, United Minds.
Zeno Group releases a report showing that while communications are a bigger factor than ever in strategy, growth, risk and workforce decisions for companies, most communications leaders don’t think they are totally ready for what lies ahead.
Most people are willing to trust AI—as long as it stays in its own lane. That’s the takeaway from Mission North’s “The New Rules of Trust," a report that looks at how the public evaluates corporate reputation and at what brands need to do to maintain credibility and relevance.
Executives are moving faster, embracing flexibility and making decisions with urgency even in the face of uncertainty, a new study from Padilla finds.
The global economy is threatened by a wave of insularity that is cutting people off from the world beyond their immediate environment and making them more unlikely to listen to—or do business with—people from other countries or with opinions different from theirs, according to Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer.
While the danger of being on the president’s bad side is seen as a major source of concern for brands, the potential negative effects of artificial intelligence pose an even greater reputational threat, according to Global Situation Room report.
