FEATURE
Celebration – from left , Fitfactory ’ s Anna Conley , Jason Pritchard , Laura Neilson , Robert Johnston and Grant Thompson , pictured at the 2024 Tees Tech Awards .
CULTURE CLUB
WORDS : DAVE ROBSON
Why staff embrace Fitfactory ’ s inclusive and supportive approach
Winner – Fitfactory CEO Jason Pritchard was named Business Leader of the Year at the Tees Tech Awards .
As CEO at software specialist Fitfactory Technology , Jason Pritchard runs the sort of business he ’ d like to work for – and one famous quote neatly sums up his approach .
When management consultant Peter Drucker said , “ Culture eats strategy for breakfast ”, he was inferring that no matter how good a firm ’ s strategic plan , it will fail without a company culture that encourages its people to implement it .
Well , there ’ s no danger of that at Fitfactory – a thriving Stockton-based firm , founded in 2020 , where every employee seems to have bought into the vision .
When Jason joined Fitfactory three years ago , he set about growing a management team that was trained to – and intuitively knew – the importance of culture .
No matter what someone ’ s CV looked like , each employee needed to feel good about working there – and it ’ s an approach that continues to pay dividends , not just in terms of staff morale but also the bottom line .
A 10-point plan was drawn up to show how Jason wanted his colleagues to feel about working for Fitfactory , which is helping more than 400 factories go through their digital transformation journeys .
And having now been taken over by private equity firm Everfield , they are policies Fitfactory continues to follow .
Four key points from the culture plan are : 1 . Extreme ownership . Trust people within their roles to execute what they need to do . Eliminate a micro-managing environment in favour of support and collaboration – a culture where people are trusted to perform their roles but with support available . 2 . Assume the best . Trust that people are doing what they need to do . And if a team member needs personal time for certain things , whether it ’ s family or workrelated , support people in those moments when they need it . If they require time for whatever reason , they ’ ll ultimately be better for it .
76 | Tees Business