For many firms, the Conduct regulator’s ‘Culture audits’ look like a short-cut to enforcement actions against Senior Managers. Seeing this as a Compliance risk, they design their Conduct and Culture programmes defensively. Because they perceive Culture as abstract and hard to measure, many firms fall back on traditional risk models – which are not designed to address human behaviour. However, by rolling out resource-intensive control processes aimed at “keeping the regulator happy”, firms are passing up a commercial opportunity to create long-term competitive advantage by basing their Conduct initiatives on fostering behaviours that also deliver long-term value.

We look beyond the traditional defensive stance and look to build and adopt a long-term, positive approach to Culture. Using robust science, we can now identify, measure and manage the underlying behavioural drivers of misconduct and of good Culture, showing member firms how to put these insights to work in ways that build business value.

A business value approach to Culture not only keeps the regulator on-side but yields far wider benefits, including keeping valued staff and clients for longer, fostering innovation and collaboration, to drive stable earnings growth, build durable capital value and create a resilient ‘social licence’.

Over breakfast with strictly Executive and non-Executive Board members, our Conduct and Culture specialists reveal how the latest behavioural insights and Culture assessment tools can transform staff engagement with the Conduct agenda. Taking firms beyond conventional Risk Frameworks and Culture assessment tools (the flawed methodology of ‘staff sentiment surveys’) towards a truly behavioural approach, this session presents a clear pathway to move ahead of the regulator’s expectations, minimise the risk of Conduct enforcement and simultaneously enhance business and strategic value. We identify the significant value-based behaviours and how to link these into financial value, in ways that you can discuss easily with staff, shareholders, clients and regulators

Outcomes

By the end of this workshop you will be able to:

• Draw on new approaches to motivate your whole firm, thawing middle-manager ‘permafrost’ and re-engaging all staff to support strategic goals
• Identify key behavioural ‘tells’ for staff disengagement, and where most effectively to intervene against them
• Define enhanced Management Information, using the latest Cultural measurement techniques that produce leading (rather than lagging) indicators of Conduct Risk and highlight factors that both shape and reflect firm values to produce long-term success
• See where and how to show innovative leadership and introduce new competencies in Conduct management to address continual change in the regulatory environment, put the latest research insights to work to create strategic competitive advantage.
• Identify and profit from a latent and underused source of business value by rebalancing reward and recognition practices