Company culture has long been a focus for Eastridge. It’s been vital to the success of the company by several measures including driving high employee engagement and retention as well as improving the service we deliver to clients (see In Staffing, Why Culture Counts).
In this spirit, Eastridge is helping to sponsor The Culture Forum, a two day gathering where thought leaders will share successful approaches to improving company culture. Seth Stein, CEO of Eastridge, sat down with Stan Sewitch, former CHRO of WD-40 and one of the event speakers and organizers, to discuss company culture and its positive impact on the bottom line.
In adopting servant leadership principles, both companies have seen employee engagement rates skyrocket – with WD-40 retaining a 93% employee engagement rate for 16 years, and Eastridge’s own boosted 50%. Both companies have also seen significant fiscal success resulting from this focus.
In this conversation, Stein and Sewitch discuss important topics such as:
Stan Sewitch on assuming the role of CHRO at the WD-40: “I took the role with the understanding that I'm not an HR person, I'm a business partner. I'm going to be paying attention to the people, elements of the systems, methods and tools that we use to advance a whole host of topics that relate to both culture and performance of the company.”
Stan Sewitch on the role of HR: “If we take a consulting viewpoint and perspective of the HR role, we will not have the decision making right for 99.9% of the decisions that need to be made related to people. Our job is to be expert advisors to the people who need to make those decisions.”
Seth Stein on coaching for performance: “I find that if you work people through a coaching system, nine times out of ten they make their own decisions and they're usually right.”
Stan Sewitch on the formation of The Culture Forum: “The Culture Forum was created out of a desire by Garry Ridge, me, The San Diego State College of Business and PurposePoint to create an experience where people could learn more about the how-to and not just the "why should I?"
More about Stan Sewitch
Stan Sewitch is an entrepreneur, business psychologist, advisor and author. His two volumes of "Notes from the Corporate Underground" were written over a ten year period as a weekly columnist for the San Diego Daily Transcript. In 2023 he published "Engage! How WD-40 Company Built the Engine of Positive Culture". Stan worked with CEO Garry Ridge and other leaders of WD-40 Company for over 20 years as an instrumental part of that engine creation.
Stan founded four companies in his career: an organizational consulting firm, a business software company, a biotech diagnostics company and a private equity firm. Stan retired in 2021 from WD-40 Company, where he served as CHRO for the company. Stan now works with CEOs and business owners on a variety of topics: strategy, organizational development, leadership development and conscious culture creation.
More about The Culture Forum
As business leaders across the globe take aim on improving company cultures as a pathway to success for individuals and companies alike, WD-40 Company is chosen as a model for creating a positive company culture, inspiring the creation of The Culture Forum to debut in San Diego.
The event — hosted by PurposePoint™ — invites CEOs, presidents, business owners and their senior leaders committed to building and leading the best organizational cultures in the world to a two-day conference on October 24-25, 2023, at San Diego State University.