A sector decimated by the pandemic
Destination Gold Coast (DGC) was a member-based marketing organisation focused on promoting the tourism and events sector of the Gold Coast. Over the course of the pandemic the industry faced severe disruption and Gold Coast tourism and events was left hanging in the balance. The future was uncertain. The incoming CEO sensed the culture needed overhauling so that DGC could be truly ‘future fit’, and ready to support its members in leading the community back to the state of a thriving visitor economy.
A deep dive culture review and co-design process with input from all
Bendelta partnered with DGC to design and facilitate a bespoke and contemporary culture discovery and co-design process to generate ownership and engagement at all levels. Our solution included a current culture survey, discovery focus groups and a series of feedback and co-design workshops with the Board, leadership and employees across the organisation. With high-touch facilitation support from us, the whole of DGC was involved in identifying a suite of strategically aligned target culture attributes and a culture development roadmap underpinning the roadmap to future success.
Our team walked beside DGC’s leadership on the ongoing culture development journey. Our solution included organisation redesign, contemporary HR advice, strategy refresh, top team development workshops and employee culture workshops focused on building the muscle for new mindsets, behaviours and ways of working. Bendelta also designed a target culture measurement framework and culture pulse survey enabling DGC’s People and Culture team to monitor ongoing success.
The outcome
The high levels of involvement in designing and shaping culture at all levels, combined with organisation design and top team support generated a substantial improvement in employee engagement. For employees, the experience was one of a low trust, ‘my team’ siloed environment, to high-trust collaborative ways of working. For the CEO, the journey was one of turnaround, leaving the organisation in a healthy, future-fit state to support the visitor economy and embrace further strategic change.
