OUR CULTURE STORY | AUTUMN 2019 04
A CULTURE THAT UNIFIES CHAPTER THREE
CHRIS GROVE Head of Transaction Services, chair of BDO’s U Board, very, very keen cyclist and sometime surfer and skier. One thing is certain: we don’t establish a culture by sitting in U Board meetings! Instead we use this leadership group to:
CHRIS GROVE
Our BAME Network held an afternoon tea debate at the House of Lords with Baroness McGregor-Smith on ‘Breaking The Mould’. That was a great initiative in itself – but just as inspiring was that representatives from our women’s network and LGBTQ+ network asked to attend to show their support for their BAME colleagues. Allies like these are vital to our ‘Be Yourself’ work.”
UNDERSTAND The U Board hosts long-term strategic discussions about how to protect and celebrate
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what makes our culture special. Importantly, we have a community of 45 people, whom we call U Leaders, across the UK to be a ‘link’ between central and local initiatives, so we can make things relevant locally and celebrate them more broadly across the firm. This helps to set the tone at a senior level and highlights to our people the importance we place in developing their talents and in helping them to succeed.
UNCOVER We’re overseeing some important debates. For example: how is our culture
We have three initial priorities – which will naturally evolve as we develop as a business and respond to the changing world and workforce:
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1. Wellbeing 2. Be Yourself 3. Citizenship
going to evolve and adapt to the workforce of tomorrow? How can we be future-ready to ensure our people have the right skills to be Advisers of the Future? How can we protect the parts of our culture that people love, as we move to more agile and flexible working styles? We’ll continue to explore these long-term topics with our people.
As a result, we now offer an impressive suite of Wellbeing support tools for our people, a clear ‘Be Yourself’ strategy and a new Citizenship programme which encourages people to take their CSR days in a really meaningful way. That’s progress to be proud of – and you can read more detail in this report. We believe that by driving success in these three culturally-important areas, we will achieve our vision to be an independent, sustainably profitable and globally focused firm, known for helping businesses and people succeed.
UNIFY We’ve been making connections between existing and new communities
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across BDO to share their stories. We meet regularly with our various network groups – individually and collectively such as BLEND (our LGBTQ+ group), BDO Inspire (our women’s network), Islamic Network, Jewish Network and BAME Network, to help us better understand barriers and opportunities.
chapter three
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