Quilter brings ambition, accountability and a growth mindset through bottom up values creation

Background 

Wealth management company Quilter recognised the need to undergo a cultural transformation to align with its strategic objectives of helping customers secure financial futures and enabling advisors to run more successful businesses. Following a comprehensive culture survey Quilter’s Board identified a critical need to strengthen key behaviours related to ambition, accountability and a growth mindset. To drive these behavioural changes Quilter set out to redesign its organisational purpose and refresh its values.

Understanding that sustainable change is best achieved when driven by employees, Quilter aimed to co-create this transformation with its people. This approach not only fostered a sense of ownership but also ensured that the new values and behaviours would resonate throughout the organisation, empowering colleagues to deliver exceptional service to clients and advisers alike.

Approach 

Quilter’s approach centred on a highly inclusive and bottom-up process, designed by the Culture Activation Team and supported by over 50 Culture Champions. These nominated and volunteer representatives from across the organisation played a crucial role in engaging the workforce every two to four weeks, fostering participation and collecting feedback. The process was rolled out in five key phases.

In Phase 1 both colleagues and customers were engaged through in-person workshops, virtual forums and online surveys. More than 500 employees and 170 customers participated, generating over 800 data points. These insights helped the team understand how Quilter could perform at its best and what behaviours were necessary to achieve that.

“Building values from the bottom up was seen by employees as leaders showing humility, listening, empowerment and patience”

Quilter then analysed the feedback and proposed value themes that reflected its strategic goals. This data informed the creation of draft values and behaviours, which were reviewed by the Executive Committee in Phase 3. The executive team provided feedback to ensure the values would differentiate Quilter within the financial sector.

All colleagues then voted on the final values, ensuring strong internal support. Finally the new values were translated into actionable behaviours through workshops that defined the ‘on’ and ‘off’ behaviours for each value. The result was a comprehensive framework that reflected the organisation’s ambitions.

Outcome

The transformation led to the creation of four new values: Always Curious, Embrace Challenge, Stronger Together and Do the Right Thing. These values, launched at Quilter’s all-colleague conference, received overwhelming support. Feedback from employees highlighted the positive impact of being part of the process, with many feeling inspired by the new values and their alignment with Quilter’s future direction.

The values are now embedded into Quilter’s daily operations, supported by ongoing leadership development programmes. Quilter’s culture transformation has not only strengthened internal collaboration but has also equipped the organisation to achieve its strategic goals through a shared commitment to ambition, accountability and growth.