How to measure your company’s culture

How can a financial services company change its culture if it cannot identify, assess or measure that culture? Samantha Tymms suggests ways to measure and monitor it, highlighting how evidence that already exists in a business can be used for a board discussion on culture.

Samantha Tymms, managing director at Promontory in London, has worked extensively in regulation, holding enforcement and supervision roles. Sam previously ran the Financial Services Authority department that regulated the major retail insurance global groups. At Promontory, she has undertaken board effectiveness reviews, provided training for boards, prepared board induction and development plans as well as prepared executive and non-executive board members for Financial Conduct Authority/Prudential Regulation Authority interviews.

A key Financial Conduct Authority priority for 2016/2017[1] is for companies to “[get] their culture and conduct right”. By addressing the conduct element of culture, the regulator’s hope is that companies will be “doing the right thing for the consumer and the markets”[2].