Case Study: When Company Culture Needs a Refresh

Co-creating solutions with employees and leadership

Line drawing of a human head silhouette with gears inside representing thinking or mental processes.

Employee satisfaction scores in a large pharma company’s human health insights group weren’t satisfying anyone. What might build and sustain a positive work environment for everyone, improving culture, collaboration, communication, and connectivity?

The Challenge

Level 5 created a custom, five-phase qualitative research engagement designed to build trust, maintain anonymity, and elicit honest feedback, including 1:1 interviews and an online bulletin board that used creative exercises to identify perceptions and generate emotions.

The Approach

The Breakthrough

  • Employees felt they had been asked the same questions over and over with little resulting action; they reported frustration and apathy, but also cautious optimism.

  • Leadership was not demonstrating that they heard and understood employees in meaningful ways; they were unknowingly compounding frustration by issuing assignments without context.

  • Employees felt an ideal culture would value each team member on a human level, recognizing every individual’s worth.

The Impact

Level 5 delivered actionable recommendations rooted in staff feedback that leadership could actually implement – tactical next steps were not only practical but also scalable and measurable for sustained impact.

Group of diverse friends taking a selfie outdoors, smiling and making peace signs.

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