At Culture Consultancy we’ve been supporting clients in Financial Services to adapt and transform for over 15 years, creating high performing teams, exceptional leaders and responding to market, regulatory and workforce challenges and opportunities. We are a team of ex-FS professionals, culture, leadership and org psych experts so we really “get” the context.
What we do
We draw on our extensive Financial Services sector experience to help our clients:
- Embed the right culture to deliver on their strategy
- Define, measure and track cultural success measures
- Attract, retain and develop top talent
- Upskill leaders and managers
- Benefit from diversity and inclusion
- Respond to a Skilled Person’s Report under s166
When you might need us
The Culture Consultancy team are often called in at key business inflection points such as:
- Change in leadership
- Strategy refresh
- Mergers, acquisitions and IPOs
- Digital transformation
- Scaling/rapid growth
- Globalising & reorganising
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Common culture challenges we can help you address...
Attracting & retaining talent
In a diversified FS market, fintech companies are luring top talent away from more traditional players. Competitive reward and meaningful benefits play a part in the war for talent but aren’t enough on their own. Organisations need to prioritise their overall People Experience, particularly the following areas that we regularly work to deliver for our clients:
- A compelling employer value proposition to attract great people
- Best in class recruitment and onboarding experience
- High-performing and inclusive cultures with high levels of psychological safety
- Clear career pathways
- Opportunities to learn, grow and advance
- Capable managers and inspiring leaders
Digital transformation, technology adoption & cyber security
Across FS, organisations want to capitalise on opportunities provided by AI and automation to increase efficiency and optimise customer experience. They need to maintain trust by protecting customers from financial crime. This is as much about culture as it is about processes and systems. Organisations need to curate an agile, innovative, risk-aware and digitally enabled culture in order to deliver good outcomes at pace.
Skills gaps
Research by EY estimates that at least 16% of the FS workforce in the UK (equivalent to 160,000 workers) currently require upskilling, with an estimated 8% proficiency shortfall across all skills. A “learning first” culture will deliver the flexibility and adaptability required and should enable enhancement in both technical capabilities (compliance, risk, AI, cyber and sustainability) as well as crucial human skills such as empathy, creative thinking, and agility.
Changing customer and regulatory expectations
Shifts in customer habits and expectations require firms to innovate at pace, all whilst robustly delivering good customer outcomes as required by the FCA’s Consumer Duty. Organisations therefore need to ensure their culture supports customer-centricity as well as effective innovation and collaboration.
Enhancing Diversity & Inclusion
There is an increasing emphasis on diversity and inclusion (D&I) within corporate cultures. Financial services firms, which have historically been male-dominated and less diverse, need to make substantial cultural shifts to promote inclusivity. Implementing effective D&I initiatives can be challenging due to unconscious biases, established hierarchies, and resistance to change. Failure to do so can result in a lack of innovation, lower employee morale, and reputational damage.
Getting the “tone from the top” right
The FCA has said that the first factor in shaping culture is the “tone from the top”. Modern FS leaders need to role-model desired behaviours to inspire and motivate their teams and must demonstrate high levels of self-awareness and willingness to adapt and grow. The top team needs to be greater than the sum of its parts – having exceptional leaders in their own right who, when they come together, are a powerful and united force for organisational performance. We help individuals and top teams unleash their greatness, by uncovering their shared purpose, vision and values and by providing team and individual coaching.
“Culture remains central to our supervisory model. It is what underpins outcomes – firms with healthy cultures will be best equipped to adapt to a changing world and to consumers with changing expectations.”
Emily Shepperd, COO of The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
Start your journey with our Culture Assessment
Discover the cultural inhibitors & enablers in your business
The Culture Consultancy (CC) Culture Assessment is an award-winning culture diagnostic, recognised by both the CIPD and Business Culture Awards, and informed and enhanced by 15+ years of use with clients.
Using a combination of contemporary business and HR thinking with organisational psychology, it is underpinned by widely recognised cultural models such as Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture, Johnson & Scholes’ cultural web and Hatch’s dynamics of organisational culture. Get in touch to learn more…
“Seeing our MABology culture take shape and come to life has been brilliant. I’m so proud of everyone who worked on the project, but special thanks must go to Derek and the team at Culture Consultancy who really helped us get to where we are now.”
Claire Smith, People & Culture Director at Mortgage Advice Bureau
“We were so impressed with CC. They have taken something very complicated and made it simple. We’re thrilled about the new culture they helped us create, and the way that they’ve supported and challenged us throughout has pushed us on even further than we could have anticipated.”
Greg Ingleton, HR Director at Pepper Money
“Their insight formed the highly compelling backbone to everything that came in defining and embedding our Mission, Vision and Values. They provided real energy to the project and delivered a full end-to-end service.”
Jim Brown, Group Head of Marketing at One Savings Bank
“Culture Consultancy made a challenging project simple and effective for us, translating multiple thoughts and ideas into clear and concise language that matched our style.”
Judith Lamb, Vice President, Global HR at CloudPay
“Culture Consultancy were able to take a very ambiguous and high level brief and develop a detailed and thorough solution.”
Richard Wazacz, COO Europe at Prudential UK
“Culture Consultancy – A pleasure to work with.”
Fidelma Harris, Head of Individual Sales at AXA PPP healthcare
Our Culture Discovery Workshops
For top teams wanting to power up their organisation’s performance and who want to partner with award winning experts in culture, leadership, customer and people experience, engagement and communication.
- Facilitate an open dialogue about your people and culture challenges and their impact
- Explore preliminary findings based on existing insights
- Share our recommendations for next steps
- Create alignment around the case for culture change
- Establish quick wins and longer-term ambitions
- Identify key business and people metrics to measure success
Some of our financial services success stories...
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Tell us about your culture challenge
For more information about our services, or to speak to one of the team…
