Getting your workplace culture right is no longer being seen as a ‘nice-to-have’. It’s a development made explicit by a new survey by Grant Thornton among Chief Financial Officers in technology businesses in the UK — not necessarily the people you would expect to be championing the importance of soft skills and relationships.
But 58% of the CFOs questioned said their top priority in terms of ‘human capital investment’ for 2025 was now the creation of positive workplace environments (up from 45% in the year before).
As might be expected, the reasons behind this support for culture is rooted in money. The argument from CFOs is that salaries can’t keep on increasing (especially with the National Insurance bill to pay), so offering a good workplace vibe is a useful alternative. Make people want to work for you, and not just for the cash. So culture has become a ‘currency’ in itself, especially given the awareness of the value of flexibility, hybrid working and support for mental wellbeing.
CFOs are backing a number of different kinds of initiatives. Like making ‘wellness’ part of manager training at the creative agency Ogilvy, and introducing weekly workshops for reducing stress and anxiety, making use of methods such as meditation, yoga, breathing exercises and a ‘sound bath’ where employees are bathed in sound waves. Digital media firm Komi Group has invested in refurbishment of its offices, making them feel more like comfortable home spaces, including a ‘living room’ with Netflix, quiet rooms, and a kitchen stocked up with snacks. The Moneypenny customer-call answering service has concentrated on encouraging a sense of purpose and mission among its people. That has meant programmes of events linked to charity fund-raising, a ‘net-zero masterclass’, ‘planet-awareness day’, and setting up beehives at one office as a way of supporting biodiversity.
These are all well-intentioned, eye-catching initiatives for people to latch onto — but do they, would they, improve a working culture? It feels like this approach is really only addressing symptoms and not the underlying causes of poor or toxic cultures. Bad work cultures tend to be distinguished by different problems and issues; good work cultures are all the same, because they share one common foundation: a strong sense of trust.
Employees, at whatever level they’re working at, know that their employer has their best interests in mind, and that everyone is pulling together to meet some shared ambitions. They know if they have a problem — and that’s just the nature of workplaces, and different people with different ideas and personalities coming together in what can be competitive situations — then they’re going to be sorted out. In a reasonable, grown up way. Fairly and honestly, and everyone involved will move on quickly, without a taint of resentment.
It’s what we call a Clear Air culture. It’s made possible through a combination of good informal processes — regular use of mediation at early stages, as well as initiative like neutral assessment and the development of psychological safety among teams — backed up with attention to soft skills: people management and conversations skills. In other words, the ability of employees, and line managers in particular, to face up to disagreements and grievances, those awkward and uncomfortable situations, and deal with them in a professional way that defuses conflict and keeps on adding to those all-important feelings of trust around the organisation.
So rather than being too hung-up on the surfaces of an employer brand (how can we lure people in, and not have to rely on salary packages), CFOs need to be thinking about the genuine value of good work (a powerful way to support people in being the best they can be, to get more out of work, and want to be part of something).
