Introducing The Student Energy Group
The Student Energy Group, a specialist provider of student bills services, has experienced rapid growth in the last three years, expanding to a team of 64. Guided by the core value of doing the right thing — for suppliers, colleagues, the planet, and their customers — the company has prided itself on fostering a strong, values-led culture.
During this period of rapid growth, senior leaders remained conscious of the vital role a healthy organisational culture plays in achieving business goals, reducing staff turnover, and boosting productivity. However, they recognised the need for a “culture stock check” to ensure the culture they had worked hard to build remained intact, especially as they had focused on business operations that fostered this recent expansion.
Seeking actionable insights and a reliable benchmark of their current culture, The Student Energy Group engaged with Cultiv8tiv. Unlike traditional employee engagement tools, the Cultiv8tiv assessment offered a deep dive into how employees truly felt about their workplace, enabling the company to pinpoint opportunities for improvement, arming them with a clear and actionable list of things to focus on to improve their culture.
Cultural Context: Aligning Values and Voices
As a fast-growing organisation, The Student Energy Group had onboarded a significant number of new employees since they formed just three years ago. Keen to build a reputation as a great place to work, the leadership team sought to understand how well their current culture aligned with their business values and goals.
There was a feeling within the business that internal communication – particularly around strategic decision-making and the rationale behind leadership choices – could be improved. Despite this, the leadership team felt confident that their strong, values-driven culture had successfully engaged employees and aligned them with the company’s mission.
The Cultiv8tiv assessment provided an opportunity to verify these assumptions and uncover areas for refinement, offering a comprehensive snapshot of their culture during a crucial moment in their growth journey.
Reinforcing Assumptions with Measurable Insights
Their Cultiv8tiv assessment confirmed many of The Student Energy Group’s assumptions while also offering new perspectives. By collecting feedback across 12 key cultural areas – ranging from respect and motivation to leadership and values – the company gained quantifiable insights into what was working well and what required attention.
The assessment revealed that, while the company’s core values resonated with most team members, there was room to improve communication about how business decisions connected to these values. As they had assumed before taking the assessment, senior leadership decisions driven by the value of doing the right thing were not always clearly understood by employees, creating gaps in alignment.
In response, the leadership team reinstated monthly town hall meetings to improve transparency, foster a stronger connection between decision-makers and employees, and create an open forum for company-wide communication. This practical change reinforced the team’s sense of inclusion and understanding, while also addressing the identified gap in communication.
Data-Driven Action: Refining Culture for Sustainable Growth
The Cultiv8tiv assessment not only validated the company’s strengths but also provided clear action points to fine-tune their culture. Armed with these insights, The Student Energy Group implemented a range of targeted initiatives, including a greater focus on manager training to improve their communication skills and maintain alignment to values as the company scaled further.
By addressing smaller cultural challenges – like this perceived communication gap – The Student Energy Group ensured that they could retain talent, reduce recruitment costs, and drive business outcomes.
The actionable nature of their assessment gave the company a clear roadmap for ongoing culture improvement, with plans to conduct annual assessments to track progress of their targeted initiatives.
Client Testimonial
James Villarreal, Co-Founder of The Student Energy Group, shared:
“I’ve used other culture assessment tools before, but they often felt like a tick-box exercise. By contrast, Cultiv8tiv was transformative for our business. It provided an unexpected depth of insight into our culture and gave us hard data to confirm areas we believed needed attention.
“Over the last three years, we’ve grown our team to over 60 people. This growth represents a significant investment in recruitment and onboarding, so maintaining a positive, high-performing culture is critical to protect this investment and avoid burnout.
“We live by our value of doing the right thing – for our customers, our colleagues, and the business itself. Building a strong culture is a natural extension of this value. Cultiv8tiv gave us the understanding we needed to take actionable steps, whether that’s improving internal communication or doubling down on what our team already loves about working here.
“We’ll definitely run the assessment again next year to ensure our culture and values keep pace with our growth. This is more than just the right thing to do – it’s critical for the business and its long-term success and any future valuation of the business.”
Looking Forward
With further growth on the horizon, Student Energy Group now has a clear snapshot of their current culture, providing a benchmark to guide future culture programmes.
They’ve already reintroduced regular all-hands meetings to improve internal communication and transparency, as well as addressing smaller but impactful cultural tweaks. With a clear strategy and measurable goals in place, Student Energy Group is well-equipped to continue their growth trajectory while staying true to their values and offering staff an excellent place to work.