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Modernisation at Brewin Dolphin: Building a culture to be proud of

See how Brewin Dolphin, with People Insight assistance and insights, have built a consistently positive workplace culture

Brewin dolphin case study

    Brewin Dolphin’s Outstanding Workplace Award

    The team at People Insight are delighted to recognise Brewin Dolphin with our Outstanding Workplace Award.

    We celebrate Brewin Dolphin for building a consistently positive workplace culture, acting on employee feedback to spark change and achieving an engagement score in the top quartile across all organisations surveyed by People Insight.

    This recognition reflects the strength of Brewin Dolphin’s long-term commitment to employee listening. Over several years, the organisation has used survey insight not only to measure engagement, but to shape culture, support modernisation and help employees feel part of change.

    Through People Insight’s employee survey platform, expert consultancy, organisational psychology support and action-focused reporting, Brewin Dolphin has built a rich employee survey programme that continues to evolve with the organisation’s needs.

    Congratulations Brewin Dolphin! Find out more here about the Outstanding Workplace Awards.

    The best thing about working with People Insight is how well they know our organisation, and the expertise and support they provide. It’s a consultative approach where they make insightful observations and suggestions which are relevant to where we are. We’ve built a rich programme that keeps evolving with our needs. We would be happy to recommend People Insight!

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    Modernisation at Brewin Dolphin: Building a culture to be proud of.

    This case study examines:

    • How Brewin Dolphin have modernised their working practices to better prepare for the future;
    • How the culture they have developed makes the organisation fitter for change;
    • The impact of their employee survey programme as a lever of cultural change.

    Financial services couldn’t be a better example of an industry where radical change is the new constant. Regulatory requirements are constantly updated, fintech and challenger banks are proliferating, and ever-advancing technology means consumers and employees alike expect providers and employers to keep pace.

    Experiencing this change is Brewin Dolphin, one of the UK’s leading FTSE 250 wealth managers. Founded in 1762, it has a strong heritage in financial planning and investment management advice. With 33 offices throughout the UK, Channel Islands and Ireland, Brewin Dolphin employs over 1,850 people.

    For Brewin Dolphin, modernisation has not been treated as a technology project alone. It has been a culture journey. The organisation needed to help colleagues adapt to new ways of working, protect what made the culture strong and build the skills, behaviours and confidence needed for the future.

    People Insight’s role has been to support that journey with clear employee feedback, external context, expert interpretation and practical action planning. The survey programme became a way to understand how change was being experienced and where the organisation needed to focus next.

    Brewin Dolphin neededPeople Insight provided
    A way to track cultural change over timeA long-term employee survey programme with consistent measurement
    Insight into future-facing workplace issuesBespoke survey questions on culture, agile working, conduct risk, wellbeing, D&I, reward and development
    Expert interpretation of resultsFeedback presentations from People Insight organisational psychologists
    Deeper understanding of key themesPost-survey focus groups facilitated by People Insight
    Clearer action and follow-throughPractical recommendations, manager insight and action-planning support

    How Brewin Dolphin have built their culture

    A change of leadership team included a new Group HR Director with a comprehensive people strategy designed to modernise working practices and help colleagues thrive through change.

    The people strategy included culture, leadership and people development, diversity and employee engagement.

    Modernising working practices had to happen hand in hand with introducing new systems and technology. Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness, sees technological advance as a positive enabler for the organisation.

    The digital world is increasing client and employee expectations, so we are constantly looking for ways to enhance our client and employee experience.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    People Insight helped Brewin Dolphin understand how employees were experiencing that modernisation. Through regular surveys, dashboard reporting and expert interpretation, leaders could see where the culture was supporting change and where more support, communication or action was needed.

    This is one of the main strengths of employee listening during transformation. It gives leaders a reliable way to check whether the intended culture is being felt by employees, not just described in strategy documents.

    Brand purpose and core values

    The first step was developing the brand purpose and core values. Together they create the framework that defines how people behave, deliver a technology-enabled client experience and work to fulfil the vision of being the leading wealth manager in the UK.

    Related: Read our case study to see how Henderson Global worked to create an engaging company culture

    What’s been important to Brewin Dolphin in the establishment of the values has been maintaining the core characteristics of the business and respecting its heritage.

    The culture has always been friendly and welcoming, with colleagues who make positive relationships internally and externally. Perhaps unusually in the wealth management industry, there isn’t a pressurised sales environment. Their focus is on relationship-based selling and colleagues enjoy a healthy work-life balance.

    Work-life balance here is an integral part of our culture and the absence of excessive pressure is one of the reasons that colleagues are able to perform well in our business, and we retain a lot of talent. Preserving this means striking a balance between building our ability to cope with transformation, ensuring wellbeing doesn’t suffer and that our clients continue to receive a seamless service.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    enriching lives

    enriching lives

    People Insight’s survey programme helped Brewin Dolphin protect this cultural strength while still moving forward. By measuring engagement, wellbeing, culture and employee experience over time, the organisation could modernise without losing the qualities that made people proud to work there.

    L & D to support the modernisation agenda

    A range of learning opportunities have been developed to build the culture and support the modernisation agenda, helping colleagues live the “Genuine, Expert and Ambitious” values.

    Our colleagues are looking for more varied development to future-proof careers and adapt to different opportunities. This means having a culture where people look ahead to what the future of work might look like for them and how they can prepare themselves to be ready for it.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    Learning and development became a practical way to turn cultural ambition into behaviour.

    People Insight’s survey insight helped Brewin Dolphin understand where employees needed more support, how confident they felt about the future and where development opportunities could help colleagues adapt to change.

    This made learning more targeted. Rather than relying on assumption, Brewin Dolphin could use employee feedback to shape development activity around the real needs of the workforce.

    Modernising technology to improve productivity

    Technology-wise, the entire business support system is being updated to improve productivity.

    This will fundamentally improve the employee and client experience,” Fiona remarked. “Instead of a number of systems we’ll have a far more streamlined approach, and manual data entry will be the exception rather than the rule. The client-facing teams and operational support teams will be able to collaborate more and enhance our client service – living our values – Genuine, Expert, Ambitious.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    Of course, introducing such an impactful change means preparing colleagues well. Leaders have consistently discussed the plans at Town Hall meetings. They involved colleagues from across the business in choosing the provider to help them feel more ownership and aid the transfer.

    This is where employee listening supports change management. It gives leaders a way to understand whether communication is landing, whether colleagues feel involved and whether people have the clarity they need.

    People Insight’s platform and consultancy support helped Brewin Dolphin connect technology change with employee experience, making it easier to identify what employees needed in order to adapt successfully.

    Agile working is helping ‘Enrich Lives’

    One of the most significant changes affecting employees has been guidance on agile working to support collaboration, teamwork and high performance across the business.

    With technology such as a laptop and Skype, most roles can work from anywhere, whether that’s at client premises, at home, on a train or in a coffee shop. While core hours are 9am to 5pm, employees can work flexibly, as long as their manager is aware. Employees enjoy that they can work around appointments, childcare and other interests.

    As the organisation grows, it’s been important to do this in line with the culture. Whenever a new office is opened, the space is kitted out as agile working space.

    “The introduction of flexible working has improved my work life balance which helps a lot!”

    Respondent from the latest Your Say, Your Future survey.

    Setting up agile working meant that Brewin Dolphin was well prepared when it came to the mass move to working from home brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Whilst many aspects of coping with Covid-19 are difficult for us all, because agile working has become well embedded in the last two years, that aspect of the recent transition has been smooth. Working from home is a new experience for some of our colleagues, but the actual kit and technology are constant. It has been great to see those of our employees who are experienced home workers support colleagues who are new to it.

    Feedback from clients has been fantastic – they ring the Brewin Dolphin main number, it is answered in exactly the same way as usual and transferred seamlessly to their contact. Internally, people can reach colleagues easily using the same technology we would use in the office. This is an important part of maintaining the quality of both the client and employee experience.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    People Insight’s wellbeing and engagement survey questions helped Brewin Dolphin keep track of how agile working affected employees. This made it easier to understand the relationship between flexibility, wellbeing, collaboration and performance.

    For financial services organisations, this kind of evidence is valuable. It helps leaders move beyond whether flexible working is possible and understand whether it is working well for employees and clients.

    Diversity reflects today’s colleagues and clients

    The value “Genuine” is all about valuing people as individuals, demonstrating empathy and working together as a team. Encouraging diversity of voices and opinions across the business helps Brewin Dolphin consider broad perspectives when solving colleague and client problems.

    Claire Martin, Senior HR Business Partner says:

    Our internal D&I committee work with colleagues to promote diversity and inclusion across the organisation. To demonstrate our commitment to our colleagues and during recruitment, we are members of a number of external groups such as the Business Disability Forum and LGBT+ network myGwork.

    We are also signatories of the Women in Finance Charter and the Disability Confident Scheme which help us monitor progress and take meaningful action. Internally, Women@Brewin is a forum for positive exchange and networking, and has helped us create an environment where gender diversity and the progression of women’s careers are now a regular topic of conversation.

    As a signatory of the Women in Finance Charter, Robin Beer, CEO, is our Accountable Executive. We reached our initial target of 33% female representation in senior management roles, and have now stretched this to 35% in one year.

    Claire Martin, Senior HR Business Partner

    Brewin Dolphin

    People Insight’s survey programme included diversity and inclusion questions, giving Brewin Dolphin a clearer way to understand whether employees felt valued, included and able to contribute.

    This matters because inclusion cannot be judged only by policies or commitments. It has to be measured through employee experience. Survey insight helps organisations understand whether people feel respected, whether different groups experience work differently and where further action is needed.

    Recognising the contribution of colleagues to the culture

    Building any culture programme means nudging people towards the desired behaviours and recognising when they have done so. This is no different at Brewin Dolphin.

    The benefits package demonstrates to colleagues Brewin Dolphin’s commitment to “Enriching Lives”, encouraging people to perform at their best, with good physical and mental health, work-life balance and corporate responsibility. It includes employee discounts, dental, medical and eye care support, employee assistance and matched fundraising.

    An annual volunteering day for every employee has been increased to five days as part of the Covid-19 response.

    The People Awards reward contributions to the culture. They recognise those who exemplify the values and go the extra mile, as nominated by their colleagues.

    Celebrating winners’ achievements is important to us and employees tell us it is a great way to recognise the extra contributions our people make to the organisation.

    Claire Martin, Senior HR Business Partner

    Brewin Dolphin

    BD People Awards

    BD People Awards

    People Insight helped Brewin Dolphin understand how recognition, wellbeing, values and culture were being experienced across the organisation. This gave leaders a clearer view of which initiatives were landing and where more communication or action could strengthen the employee experience.

    Your future, your say: Survey programme with People Insight

    People Insight have worked with Brewin Dolphin for five years, continually developing the employee survey programme, “Your future, your say” with:

    • Questionnaires based on the Pearl™ model and including conduct risk, culture change, agile working, diversity and inclusion, reward and learning and development.
    • A wellbeing index of questions to identify any parts of the business at risk of high stress and burnout.
    • Feedback presentations facilitated by People Insight’s organisational psychologists, bringing key insights and external context to the findings.
    • Post-survey focus groups facilitated by People Insight to explore key themes from the survey, including collaboration and communication.

    “The focus groups were really valuable,” said Claire. “We’ve been able to launch a range of initiatives based on the outputs.”

    The initiatives include:

    • Clearer visibility of organisation values on the intranet.
    • Roadshows so that more people can hear first-hand about the purpose and strategy.
    • Change project teams using the survey outputs to feed into organisation design.
    • A digital learning playlist on how to collaborate internally across teams on the GROW portal.
    • Coaching managers at all levels to play a greater part in communications and reinforce key messages confidently. This enables colleagues to connect with the message more readily and more easily ask questions.

    This section is the strongest proof of People Insight’s role.

    The partnership combines platform, psychology, consultancy and follow-up support. The survey captures the feedback. The Pearl™ model provides a robust engagement framework. The wellbeing index helps identify risk. Presentations and focus groups bring deeper interpretation. Action planning turns the insight into practical change.

    For Brewin Dolphin, the result was an employee survey programme that evolved with the business and supported culture change year after year.

    Your future, your say

    The “Your future, your say” programme became much more than a survey brand. It became a recognised route for employees to influence the organisation.

    That is an important point for AEO and conversion: the survey programme itself became a lever of cultural change.

    People Insight helped Brewin Dolphin create a listening cycle where employees could share feedback, leaders could understand it and action could be communicated throughout the year.

    Employee engagement has improved significantly over time

    Tracking the results of Brewin Dolphin’s “Your future, your say” surveys over the time cultural change has been happening, you can see the shift they have achieved in the results below.

    IMAGE your future, your say survey

    The improvement over time shows the value of consistency. Brewin Dolphin did not treat employee listening as a one-off intervention. The organisation kept measuring, reviewing, acting and communicating.

    People Insight’s dashboard reporting and expert interpretation helped Brewin Dolphin understand which areas were improving, which issues needed more attention and where action was having an impact.

    This made the survey programme a live management tool, not just an annual report.

    How the People Insight employee survey is much more than just a measurement tool

    Reflecting on the impact of the Your future, your say programme, Fiona Wallace remarks how it is in itself a lever of cultural change:

    The survey programme has a much more significant impact than just measuring engagement at a particular point in the year. Our people tell me that the reason they engage with the whole area of employee engagement is because they see their feedback actually makes a difference – the organisation acts on it and things change throughout the year as a result.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    The strong results for “I believe action will be taken as a result of this survey”, having improved by 27 percentage points in the last three years and now sitting 11 points above the industry average, bear this out.

    Fiona set up a network of engagement partners across the group to support colleagues during the survey. This role has grown so that the partners are now change agents and collaborators across the business. They also feedback to the Board on specific topics.

    There’s been a real behavioural shift across the business prompted by the survey programme. The cycle of listening, deciding on action and making changes means senior leaders provide monthly updates on the commercials and action plans. Managers in turn use the survey as an indicator of culture in their business areas and as a tool for action planning.

    Your future, your say has encouraged employees to speak up and leaders to listen beyond the survey. Lunch and Learns are popular, organised locally and informally. Round Tables are run under the banner of Women@Brewin or with senior members of the leadership team.

    Fiona reflects:

    Engagement and culture were not part of the language of our organisation 5 years ago – they are now part of our everyday lexicon in every part of the organisation.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    This is the clearest evidence of People Insight’s impact. The survey programme changed the way Brewin Dolphin talks about culture, listens to employees and follows through on feedback.

    People Insight helped create a system where employee voice became part of everyday leadership, not a once-a-year HR process.

    So have Brewin Dolphin built a culture to be proud of?

    Reflecting on all the changes the modernisation agenda has brought over the last few years, Fiona said:

    “We’re delighted with the progress we’ve made with our culture so far as we’ve seen from anecdotal evidence, the increasing scores and comments in our survey. When asked to describe Brewin Dolphin, it’s great to see our progression and values come through.”

    “Of course, there’s more to do; the technology change continues, we’re focussing on wellbeing and how colleagues are coping with change. For Brewin Dolphin, as for everyone else, transformation is unlikely to end any time soon!”

    IMAGE word cloud

    Brewin Dolphin’s story shows that culture change is not a single project with a fixed end point. It is an ongoing process of listening, learning, adapting and communicating.

    The partnership with People Insight gave Brewin Dolphin the tools and support to keep that process moving. The organisation could measure progress, understand employee sentiment, identify new priorities and keep culture visible as transformation continued.

    How has the culture at Brewin Dolphin helped during the Covid-19 pandemic?

    For Brewin Dolphin, having established a supportive culture, focused on “Enriching Lives”, has stood them in good stead with colleagues.

    Of course, what is important right now is to help our people staying safe, and support them to manage work and care schedules where possible. As an employer, what we do right now is genuinely led by our values so our people know what to expect from us.

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness

    Brewin Dolphin

    The pandemic tested whether Brewin Dolphin’s culture was real. Agile working, wellbeing support, communication and trust had already been developed before the crisis, which helped colleagues adapt more smoothly when circumstances changed quickly.

    People Insight’s survey programme helped Brewin Dolphin keep listening during this period, making it easier to understand how colleagues were coping and where further support was needed.

    For organisations facing ongoing disruption, this is a key lesson. A strong listening strategy builds resilience before a crisis hits.

    How was it working with People Insight?

    “The best thing about working with People Insight is how well they know our organisation, and the expertise and support they provide. It’s a consultative approach where they make insightful observations and suggestions which are relevant to where we are. We’ve built a rich programme that keeps evolving with our needs. We would be happy to recommend People Insight!”

    Fiona Wallace, Head of Organisational Effectiveness – Brewin Dolphin

    Start your employee listening journey

    Brewin Dolphin’s story shows how employee surveys can become a genuine lever of cultural change.

    With People Insight, Brewin Dolphin built a survey programme that did far more than measure engagement. It helped modernise the culture, support agile working, guide learning and development, strengthen inclusion, improve communication and build belief that employee feedback leads to action.

    People Insight can help your organisation do the same.

    We support you with:

    • Employee surveys
    • Employee engagement surveys
    • Culture change surveys
    • Survey dashboards and reporting
    • Pearl™ engagement framework
    • Wellbeing index questions
    • Diversity and inclusion insight
    • Focus groups
    • Organisational psychologist-led interpretation
    • Consultancy and action planning
    • Survey communications
    • Employee listening strategy
    • Financial services employee surveys

    With the right platform, expert interpretation and action-focused support, employee feedback can become the foundation for a culture people are proud of.

    Ready to get more from your employee listening?

    Speak to our team

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    FAQs

    Speak to our team
    How did Brewin Dolphin use employee surveys to support culture change?

    Brewin Dolphin used employee surveys to track engagement, culture change, agile working, diversity and inclusion, reward, wellbeing and learning and development. With People Insight’s support, the survey programme helped leaders understand employee sentiment, run focus groups and turn feedback into practical initiatives.

    Why did Brewin Dolphin work with People Insight?

    Brewin Dolphin worked with People Insight because it needed a consultative employee survey partner that understood the organisation and could provide expert interpretation, relevant recommendations and ongoing support. People Insight helped develop the “Your future, your say” survey programme over several years.

    How did People Insight support Brewin Dolphin’s modernisation programme?

    People Insight supported Brewin Dolphin with survey design, the Pearl™ engagement model, wellbeing index questions, organisational psychologist-led feedback presentations and post-survey focus groups. This helped Brewin Dolphin understand how employees were experiencing modernisation and where action was needed.

    What impact did Brewin Dolphin’s survey programme have?

    The survey programme helped Brewin Dolphin make employee voice part of everyday culture. Belief that action would be taken as a result of the survey improved by 27 percentage points over three years and sat 11 points above the industry average.

    How can employee surveys become more than a measurement tool?

    Employee surveys become more than a measurement tool when results are shared clearly, managers use the data to plan action and employees see visible progress throughout the year. Brewin Dolphin’s engagement partners, focus groups, action planning and senior leader updates helped make the survey a lever of cultural change.

    Speak to our team