👉 Background: Country Road Group is the kinda-upmarket-but-not-too-upmarket fashion retailer that’s owned by South African company Woolworths Holdings. It also owns Mimco, Trenery, Witchery, and Politix. But the past few years have been anything but simple and stylish for Country Road.

👉 What happened: In fact, it has been embroiled in financial issues and workplace scandals. Now, Country Road has brought in a consulting firm that specialises in mending culture within organisations. This is expected to lead to a major restructure of Country Road Group’s operations, and is likely to see a number of jobs cut too.

👉 What else: And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Country Road’s been struggling with sales growth after a 5% drop in sales in the first half of 2024. Sounds like Country Road’s seeing more than just employee morale drain from the company.

What's the key learning?

💡A sour company culture can very easily sour the bottom line of a business.

💡Poor culture in an organisation can directly (or indirectly) increase a businesses’ costs and impact its profitability. We're talking:

• High employee turnover and recruitment costs
• Disengaged employees, which can cost their companies around 18% of their annual salary
  

💡The risk for Country Road is that this not only impacts head office, but customers can also pull away from brands which don’t align with their values.