How Goodbody built an award-winning culture following acquisition
The client
Goodbody is a leading financial services firm offering wealth management, asset management and investment banking services across Ireland and the UK. In 2021 Goodbody was re-acquired by Allied Irish Bank after a protracted period of uncertainty.
The challenge
The acquisition process had taken its toll on the firm. Employee engagement levels and morale were low, and a number of people were leaving the business. A new strategy was being developed which would require a shift in organisational behaviours to succeed.
The focus on risk and compliance had also been impacted by the acquisition process, resulting in a series of recommendations for the firm to implement, including embedding a culture that supported a risk culture.
What we did
We began with an Insight phase to gain a deep understanding of the existing culture. By engaging with everyone in the organisation we were able to identify the lived reality of the current culture, including the enablers and inhibitors of performance and conduct. This resulted in a set of culture priorities to support the strategic direction and regulatory requirements.
Having agreed the ‘case for change’ with the executive and senior leadership teams, we set to work designing the new culture to set Goodbody up for future success.
Working with a subset of employees from across the business we crafted a future-proofed culture definition, redefined the corporate purpose and created 4 new cultural values to shape the culture of Goodbody. To bring the new culture to life for the employees we created a strategic narrative connecting the past and present to the exciting new future culture.
We developed a 12-month communications plan to launch and start to embed the new culture throughout the business, and to track performance, we put in place a set of culture metrics and reporting routines. These were used to track the culture shift over time, help ensure regulatory requirements were being met, and to quickly highlight any problems or areas for improvement.
The final phase – one which is often overlooked by organisations – involved fully embedding the culture throughout the organisation. We used our unique team-based embedding approach to ensure employees fully understood the new culture and values, and most-importantly, turned them into day-to-day behaviour enabling teams to change their ways of working in line with the new values. This involved a series of in-person immersion events, leader-led workshops, and manager upskilling so Goodbody could effectively drive their new culture forward.
The results
The risk culture improved
- “My manager encourages my team to proactively consider risk in all our activities” – increased to 4.36 (out of 5) vs. 2.35 in 2021.*
- “I feel comfortable to speak up (e.g. when something doesn’t feel right, or to share concerns)” increased to 4.28 vs. 2.35 in 2021.*
Increasing belief in the future
- 95% of employees believed the adoption of the new values would make Goodbody a better place to work.*
- 90% believed the values would help reach strategic goals.*
Team-based embedding delivered sustainable culture change
- 88% expressed that their session strengthened their understanding of the firm’s new values.*
- 96% felt that the workshops supported further embedding of the values into their teams.*
- A new “Work as one” value created with the intention of enhancing communication and collaboration, plus creating a more inclusive and diverse environment, now consistently scores as either the top one, or two, lived value across all business areas.
* Extracts from a regular culture check in survey.
Award-winning Goodbody culture
Goodbody & Culture Consultancy won 2 awards at the 2023 Business Culture Awards – Best Medium Organisation and Best Transformation Initiative
“Throughout the journey, CC been very effective at coming up with practical solutions and ideas to tackle issues that have arisen. We have developed a real partnership of trust over the course of our journey so far and believe the work we have done together is starting to make a significant and positive impact on our culture and organisational effectiveness.”
Sarah Moriarty, Head of Corporate Affairs at Goodbody
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