Culture Change at Progressive Insurance
Do you buy your insurance at Progressive because you like Flo? She may be the current face of Progressive as a company, but a strong cultural emphasis over the past few years has produced significant results for their customers, their shareholders and their employees. Coleman (2013) discusses building a differentiated culture and a lasting organization through the six factors of vision, values, practices, people, narrative (a historical review of the culture) and places (work environment). This paper will use these six factors to review the significant growth at Progressive in overall revenue, earnings, and employee satisfaction through a gradual evolution of the Progressive corporate culture. It will discuss particularly people and customer focused changes in culture, their impacts on the workforce, and their effectiveness. It will close with a discussion of how the lessons learned could be applied at other companies that have high turnover, a poor image, and/or a culture that detracts from their competitive landscape.
Historical Culture
The Progressive culture has historically tried to emphasize the client with a “Fast, Fair, Better” mantra. A review of the change in vision shows that it has been changed significantly in the recent past from a long winded mission like statement as shown in Progressive (2016a) to a simple and clean “Become consumers’ number one choice and destination for auto and other insurance” as shown in
Organizational culture is the “values and beliefs that people have about an organization and provides expectations to people about the appropriate way to behave” (Kinicki, 2013, slide 3). Corporates can change Changing organizational culture can be a process using one or more of the eleven strategies, (1) formal statements, (2) slogans & sayings, (3) stories, legend, & myths, (4) leader reactions crises, (5) role modeling, training, & coaching, (6) physical design, (7) rewards, titles, promotions, & bonuses, (8) organizational goals & performance criteria, (9) measurable & controllable activities, (10) organizational structure, and (11) organizational systems & procedures (Kinicki & Williams, 2013, p. 236-137). Like stated before organizations
How do great organizations maintain low levels of turnover and high levels of employee satisfaction? The answer is found in one word: culture.
Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.
What is the corporate culture at Progressive? It all comes down to the Golden Rule. IT is the face that they treat other how they want to be treated and this goes employees, customers, agents, investors, and the community. (Progressive, Culture) along with the fundamentals golden rule Progressive stand by having a diverse atmosphere. This is done by having diverse and inclusive work environments so that world cultures can see and view from around the world can be gathered. “it means we’re free to bring forward… to learn and grow with confidence (Progressive, Culture)
Organizational cultures that can be a liability to an organization include those that create barriers to change, create barriers to diversity or barriers to mergers and acquisitions. (Robbins, S. P. 2011) Organizational cultures are also good for change and revitalization of a company. This paper will provide background information on Best Buy and the ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) Program. This paper will describe the culture of Best Buy. This paper will also discuss the approach to organizational change that the ROWE program illustrates. This case has sources of stress and this paper will discuss the sources that are apparent in the case. Changes have occurred
This paper will be written as a two segment paper that will discuss the espoused values and beliefs of the CVS Health Corporation (CVS) and the espoused values and beliefs of the South West airlines Company. Additionally, the CVS Corporation and Southwest Airlines Company’s (SWA) organizational cultures will be analyzed. The analysis of both organizations' cultures will include, the exploration of the physical characteristics of their respective corporate headquarters and what these features portrays to consumers as well as investors. Additionally, the paper will evaluate the availability of public documents that are instrumental in capturing the different cultures within the CVS Health Corporation and the Southwest Airlines Company. Furthermore,
Having had the opportunity to hold positions at a pretzel shop, recording studio, advertising association program, door-to-door sales office, and a newspaper, I have experienced a variety of different social dynamics. And through these experiences, I have recognized first hand the impact that a positive work culture can have on the happiness of employees and as a result the success of the business. My experiences held true to this concept in an almost dramatized way in which the devolution of fake office positivity to blatantly dishonest and negative employee interactions centered around money rather than people caused the company where I held my sales position, ATG Concepts, to go under only one week after I finished my internship. Despite great sales numbers, the culture caused a mass walkout of employees that forced the owner to shut down the business all together. It is through moments like these that I learned how crucial the office culture is to a businesses success and as a result always do everything in my power to create a strong sense of community and inspiration in an job or organization I am a part
After reviewing our text, it suggests that changes in organizational culture will not occur until managers make adjustments in basic assumptions (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). The Chrysler company was in need of a major revamp given their recent financial woes. An existing organization’s culture is more difficult to transform than that of a new organization, as people are inclined to adapting to a new culture, but more resistant to change (Sims, 2000). New leadership was imperative to change Chrysler’s organizational culture and the way in which the business operated. Enter Sergio Marchionne, a man up for the challenge. Sergio Marchionne changed the basic assumptions of the Chrysler company in a few different ways. Mr. Marchionne decided that
My organizational culture that is focused on assisting individuals with obtaining financial assistance via the Social Security Administration programs for disability, survivorship or widow. All employees of the organization accept and perform their responsibility in the process approval of the goal of the organization. The SSA also has an adaptive and an inert culture. The organization’s employees are “willing and eager to embrace any change that the organization deem to appropriate adaptation to an innovative marketplace. The employees are willing to take on new innovative tools to assist individuals with their disability claim in an encouraging manner (Parnell, 2014). The organization has factors of an inert culture. Its budget, laws, regulation and policies that guard the SSA programs are very conservative and the program system’s process cannot be maneuvered to an individual’s liking. These measures have to be
I chose to focus my attention on the General Motors Company. I chose General Motors because of the long history this organization has had at being the premier model of sustainment in the automobile industry for over 100 years. Many people might not own one of General Motors automobile brands but there is no doubting the legacy the General Motors brand has established. Not only is General Motors a well-known brand in the continental United States with its big four line up of Chevrolet. Buick, GMC, and Cadillac, but it is also a household name in Europe with the Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden brands, and on the Asian market with the Atobaojun, Wuling, and Faw Jiefang brands. General Motors is a diverse multicultural organization employing over 215 thousand people in six different countries stretching across 23 different time zones. The remainder of this paper will explore further into the General Motors organization by looking into six strategic management topics. Beginning with the explanation of how general Motors is able to attain behavioral control and the benefits of having the proper balance of culture, rewards, and boundaries. Understanding the importance of attaining behavioral control is important because today we more than ever we are faced with the obligation as leaders to do more with less and we must have a way to keep the organization moving forward while also keeping the employees motivated to do the same. A successful company must have a good
Through tough hiring decisions, Hsieh ensures that there is always a positive culture at his company. At Zappos, every single employee is put through training that includes the corporate culture and famous ten core values. The core values range from “create fun and a little weirdness” to “build a positive team and family spirit” (Hsieh 154). Hsieh believes that each one of the company’s values are important, so they are “committable core values that we are willing to hire and fire on” (157). As a result, Zappos has thrived in profits and hit its goal of $1 billion in gross merchandise in 2009, the same year the company ranked 23rd on the Fortune magazine “100 Best Companies to Work For” (210). By making culture a backbone of his company, Hsieh
Progressive is one of the largest car insurance providers. It offers its services through a internet or by phone and it is well known . Progressive is a company that offers auto, home and renters, motorcycle, rv/trailer, and even more types of insurance. Trying to stay one step ahead of all the other insurance providers, progressive wants to find new and affordable insurance solutions for its customers. Progressive core values or vision is to provide customers with services that will reduce the economic cost and trauma that comes along with automobile accidents.
The case study detailing the dilemma faced by the organization known as Box, Inc., is one concerned with the challenge of maintaining organizational culture in the face of rapid growth. The organization began as a classic start-up company that evolved out of a garage by a few friends. Beginning as a simple organization with few team members paved the way for the successful culture that would permeate the company for years to come. The challenge facing Box, Inc. in the study is not one of loss, but, rather, one of gain. The organization has rapidly expanded in the last few years, now hosting multiple sites around the globe and over a thousand employees. This rapid change presents the top executives, such as CEO Aaron Levie with the difficult task of preserving their start-up culture that breeds ingenuity and success. One managerial solution the top executives implemented was their institution of a rigorous and highly selective hiring process. This solution was highly effective in maintaining the organizational culture within Box, Inc., in light of the multiple organizational behavior theories that describe the strong correlation between selective hiring and cultural sustainability within a company.
A progressive insurance company is one of the best insurance companies with good reputations and track record of efficiency and good customer care service. It is an insurance company which offers a selection of different insurance kinds like Car, Motorcycle, Marine, RV, Snowmobile, Segway, Home, Life.
This paper is about a case study on, “ROWE Program at Best Buy” In this paper, I will describe the culture of Best Buy. I will also be discussing the approach to organizational change that the ROWE program illustrates. In addition, I will discuss the resistance, both organization and individual, that the ROWE Program had to overcome and the sources of stress that are apparent in this case. Lastly I will discuss whether or not the organizational culture has helped with the change.