Julie Dormand to tackle workplace culture with new consultancy
Julie Dormand, the former managing director of The Works, has launched a workplace culture consultancy designed to enhance employee experiences and drive business growth.
Dormand left The Works during its tumultuous period mid-last year, when it was “in the process” of integrating into parent company Capgemini. She, along with strategy partner Douglas Nicol and founder Damian Pincus, departed the agency due to the change in direction.
Speaking with Mumbella exclusively about the new venture, Dormand said that since leaving the Works, “a few things happened” that led her to now launch Dormand – The Culture Creator.
The first was a decision that, as a 52-year-old woman, she wanted to be a “beacon” for late-career progression. The second was seeing her family members — many of whom are small business owners — succeed, and realising she too wanted to work for herself.
“I looked at those two things, and I thought my next thing for this decade is to prove that women can continue to have great careers and that they can successfully create their own businesses.”
While many would have expected her to launch a creative agency or studio, Dormand realised her passion lies in building psychologically safe workplace cultures and cultures that have high employee satisfaction.
“With so many great businesses, great agencies in a great industry, I felt like I am best suited starting a consultancy that can help businesses have the greatest engagement in culture,” she told Mumbrella.
“One of my points of difference is having been a CEO and an MD, I look at it from a commercial and business lens, and the impact on productivity and profit, rather than seeing it just from the HR lens.
“That’s why it felt to me that this is a space that we need to improve in… And I feel I’m well versed to start and build something to help companies.”
Dormand defines company culture as “how people behave and what people say when the boss isn’t around”. It is quite often something set “from the top” that trickles down to junior staff.
“You can feel culture,” she said. “You can feel if there’s a buzz, an energy. You can feel when there’s conversations and people challenging each other, but feeling safe about it. When there’s less toxic conversation at the water cooler. It’s all these behaviours that come out, that aren’t being doing when the executives are in the room.”
Dormand – The Culture Creator will offer services such as culture diagnostics and employee experience mapping, management training, coaching and mentoring. Dormand said she will also help develop workplaces in light of the Media Federation of Australia’s recently introduced psychosocial safety code of conduct.
She is already working with a number of clients, including The Loyalty Experts, Ellipsis and Co, Aotearoa NZ’s Comms Council, and surf brand Urbn Surf.
“This isn’t about soft culture where everyone’s sat around playing ping-pong and relaxing,” Dormand told Mumbrella. “This is about engaged cultures – understanding a vision director, having a clear business plan, knowing what you’re trying to achieve… These make for a really strong, high-performing culture.
“And profit and productivity is linked to this, so this is also about having a really strong, high-performing business.”
Dormand’s long-term vision is that every employee has a positive work experience, they get a value exchange from a workplace, and she can help companies within the whole media and marketing ecosystem improve.
Beyond The Culture Creator, Dormand is the founder of The Friday Lunch Club, a networking community for senior executives and founders. She also mentors industry leaders through The Marketing Academy and Mentor Walks.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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