OUR CULTURE STORY | AUTUMN 2019 06
OURWORLD REVOLVES AROUND U CHAPTER FOUR
NICOLA LALLY Director of Communications, ((BOUNCE)) addict and had two children in two years so is just pleased to achieve selecting a matching pair of shoes every morning Our Unifying Culture allows us to respond and adapt to important topics happening in the outside world. After all, our 5,000 people (me included) still carry the same ambitions, motivations and concerns with us from our personal lives as we walk through the office doors. As Chris says, the U Board don’t ‘set’ a culture in board meetings – which means they don’t get the right to only answer the questions they choose either! So, I asked people across BDO what was on their minds and how our Unifying Culture will help:
NICOLA LALLY
We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we talk. Our U Leaders, Network groups and Listening Programme ensure we’re paying attention to what’s happening in local teams and what topics really make a difference to people.”
How can ‘U’ help us restore trust in audit? From Israh Shabbir You’ll notice that we’ve recently put ‘Trust’ right up there in our brand strapline: Ideas I People I Trust. That’s how important this topic is to us. We’ve been actively contributing to the various reviews into the future of audit, and our ‘Unifying Culture’ focus has helped us to do things: 1. Use our Core Purpose to respond to the Government’s review. Our ideas for how the audit market needs to reform are based first and foremost on what will genuinely help UK plc succeed. 2. Ensure that it’s not just our auditors who recognise the importance of quality. Our strategic framework has one important phrase for all our 5,000 people to unite behind: “Quality is explicitly and implicitly included in everything we do”. Read more on page 18 and also take a look at BDO’s Transparency Report.
How does our positive focus on ‘U’ allow us to tackle poor behaviours? From Chris George
How are we getting on with gender balance? From Anne Clark Overall, our BDO population
Philosophically, we believe more people want to do the right thing than actively do the wrong thing. But we’re all human and are definitely fallible; people are complex – life is complex! So the first step is to always acknowledge that poor behaviour will happen. We all have a line and we know how we feel when someone crosses that line. As an employer, our Unifying Culture helps us put some things in place to help people understand what’s expected of them and where to go if they need help. For example: X X Our Values: these are so important and guide our behaviours. We encourage people to use these to both celebrate good behaviours and call people out should they see poor behaviour. X X Our Code of Conduct: we’ve launched a new Code of Conduct this year which articulates how we should all be operating – not just as employees or partners, but actually just as decent human beings!
is 47% female, 52% male and 1% prefer to describe or to not say. As is common across our profession, gender balance then shifts at management level. Which is why we have been working to better support and mentor senior females wanting to progress further – and as a result now 17% of our partners are female. We signed up to HM Treasury’s Women In Finance Charter this year, with a target of reaching 20% females by July 2021, and we’ve seen a decrease in our Gender Pay
Gap data again this year. Read more on page 28.
chapter four
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