CULTURE DESIGN
Using assessment insight, internal data and leadership priorities, we help you design the values, behaviours, employee experience and communications that support your strategy, strengthen alignment and make change easier to embed.
When strategy and day-to-day reality are no longer aligned
Many organisations reach a point where the way people work, lead and make decisions is no longer fully supporting what the business needs. Existing behaviours, expectations and experiences can start to hold back performance, alignment and progress.
A strong culture does not happen by chance. It is intentionally designed. We work with you to co-create the behaviours, employee experience and ways of working that align with your strategy and support stronger business performance.
The design stage can take different forms depending on your priorities, current challenges and the changes your business needs to make. We tailor the work around the areas that will create the greatest clarity, alignment and momentum. Here are some of the ways we can help:
As organisations evolve, their mission, vision and values do not always evolve with them. What once felt relevant can become disconnected from the reality of the business today.
• What we do: We help you define or refresh your mission, vision and values so they reflect where the organisation is heading and what it now needs from its people. The aim is to create a clearer, more relevant set of guiding principles that people can understand, connect with and use in practice.
• The Outcome: Sharper organisational direction, a more meaningful set of shared principles and a stronger basis for leadership, communication and behaviour.
Leaders play a critical role in shaping how culture is experienced, but they are not always aligned on the behaviours, messages and expectations the organisation now needs from them.
• What we do: We work with you to define the leadership behaviours and ways of working needed to support the next phase of the business. That may include leadership principles, behavioural expectations, alignment workshop sessions or support to surface and close the gap between current and future leadership capability.
• The Outcome: More consistent leadership, clearer role-modelling and stronger confidence that change is being led in a visible and credible way.
Without clear behavioural and capability expectations, performance standards can vary widely across the organisation. That makes it harder to manage performance consistently, support development effectively and build the capabilities the business needs.
• What we do: We help define the behaviours, skills and mindsets that should underpin strong performance. This can include behavioural frameworks, competency models and skills matrices that give leaders and managers a more practical basis for performance management, development and progression.
• The Outcome: More consistent performance expectations, clearer development priorities and a stronger link between what the business needs and how people are supported to deliver it.
As organisations evolve, the promise they make to employees does not always evolve with them. What once felt distinctive can become unclear, outdated or disconnected from the experience people actually have, making it harder to attract and retain the right talent.
• What we do: We help define or refresh your Employee Value Proposition, clarifying the give-and-get between employer and employee and shaping a proposition that reflects what your organisation offers, what it expects in return and what makes that relationship meaningful. We make sure it is grounded in insight, aligned to your strategy and strong enough to support both internal engagement and external attraction.
• The Outcome: A stronger EVP that helps you attract the right talent, retain key people and build a more consistent employee experience.
Employee experience is shaped by more than policies and perks. It is shaped by what people encounter every day. When key moments across the employee journey feel inconsistent or out of step with the organisation’s intentions, engagement, retention and performance can all suffer.
• What we do: We help design the employee experience needed to support your strategy and bring the desired culture to life. This can include shaping an experience blueprint or principles, mapping key moments that matter and identifying where changes are needed to create a more aligned and effective experience of work.
• The Outcome: A more consistent and effective employee experience that supports engagement, improves retention and better reflects what the organisation stands for.
Even when the direction is clear at the top, it is not always understood consistently across the organisation. Messages can become fragmented, priorities can be interpreted differently and employees may not see how the wider direction connects to their role.
• What we do: We help define the narrative that connects your strategy, culture and expectations in a more meaningful and accessible way. Alongside that, we can shape the internal communications approach needed, or work with an internal team, to reinforce the message and bring greater consistency to how it is shared.
• The Outcome: Stronger organisational alignment, clearer understanding and a more consistent story about where the organisation is heading and what it needs from its people.
When success measures are vague or disconnected from business priorities, culture work can quickly lose traction. Leaders may struggle to judge progress, prove impact or know where to focus next.
• What we do: We help identify the indicators and measures that will give you a more useful view of progress over time. That can include behavioural signals, employee insight and business measures, brought together in a dashboard that supports better visibility and more informed decision-making.
• The Outcome: A clearer view of what is changing, stronger accountability and a more practical way to track impact over time.
We don’t just define culture on paper; we design it to work in practice. From growth strategy to post-deal integration, we help organisations build the conditions for stronger business performance.
MAB needed a shared culture across its advisor network. Through ‘MABology’, we translated values into everyday behaviours to strengthen engagement and performance.
Award Winning
Lovell needed a more collaborative, customer focused culture. We reset values, behaviours and leadership expectations, boosting engagement, customer ratings and safety.
Rapid growth caused cultural fragmentation. We redefined values and behaviours to strengthen leadership, communication and alignment, supporting their FTSE250 rise.
Our Team
Culture Consultancy delivers
creative, innovative, and tailored design solutions.
DIRECTOR
Jo
Ex-head of HR for Goldman Sachs, speaker, and author on the topics of high-performance leadership, culture and employee experience.
consultant
Emma Rose
Experienced brand design, cultural transformation and employee experience strategist, with clients across the globe and sectors.
DIRECTOR
Derek
Former AXA Head of Customer Service, thought leader, and author with over 20 years experience leading teams and delivering results.
consultant
Natalie
A senior people leader and employment lawyer with board-level experience, specialising in culture change and HR transformation.
consultant
Paul
With two decades’ experience and a background in BP’s global social investment, Paul helps organisations unlock performance through people.
consultant
Gillian
Gillian is a leadership coach and facilitator with 25+ years’ experience helping organisations thrive, leaders grow, and people excel.
consultant
Ed
An organisational psychologist with more than 15 years experience working with clients like the BBC, HSBC, and Expedia.
consultant
Andrew
A highly qualified ‘development’ consultant who works with individuals, leaders and teams to enable them to operate at their best.
consultant
David
ILM-accredited coach and mindfulness practitioner helping leaders design culture solutions to create human-focused workplaces.
Let’s talk about your work design needs and what’s next
You’ll be speaking with Jo Geraghty, our founder and culture expert. She’ll personally guide you through your next steps
Frequently asked questions
Culture design is the process of intentionally shaping the values, behaviours, leadership expectations and employee experience needed to support your strategy. It helps organisations define the future culture they need, rather than leaving it to evolve by default.
Designing company culture starts with understanding the current reality, then defining what needs to change to better support the business. That can include clarifying mission, vision and values, shaping leadership behaviours, defining behavioural expectations, strengthening employee experience and creating the narrative and measures that support consistency over time.
Culture design is about defining the future direction, including the values, behaviours, expectations and experience the organisation wants to create. Culture embedding is about putting that into practice through leadership, communication, team-based work, systems and reinforcement, so it becomes part of everyday working life.
Not always. Culture design often follows assessment or diagnostic work, but it can also build on insight you already have internally. Where there is enough clarity on the current state, priorities and challenges, culture design can begin from that starting point.
Culture is best measured through a combination of behavioural indicators, employee insight and business measures. The most useful approach looks at both leading indicators, such as shifts in behaviours or employee sentiment, and lagging indicators such as retention, engagement, performance or other outcomes linked to your priorities.
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