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How we’re bringing about cultural change at the CBI

Concrete actions have been taken, with more to come

31 May 2023, 2 min read

Shocking allegations in the Guardian stopped the CBI in its tracks. But since then we’ve been taking urgent action to best protect our people, reinforce our HR practices and transform our culture for the long term.  

We’ve committed to implement all 34 recommendations from Fox Williams – the law firm we appointed to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations and lessons we could learn. All but seven will be completed by the time of the EGM.

We’ve kicked off a comprehensive review of the CBI’s governance, starting with the board and directors, the executive leadership and how we get our mandate. Some of the work is already completed. The rest will be within the next six months.

And we are undertaking a major review of the CBI’s culture.

It takes time to change culture

We are committed for the long haul and significant work is well underway.

We appointed experts Principia to start us on the journey – and to ensure we stay on the right path. And following our extensive staff engagement exercise, we know where to focus our efforts.

Principia’s report found that while our purpose and hard work to influence and inform on behalf of our members gives us a strong identity and motivates our staff, that focus has come at a cost. It found blanket accusations of the CBI’s culture being toxic are not correct, but we have work to do to embed a consistent set of values for all of our staff.

These findings have fed into a five-step roadmap for culture change

These steps are:

  1. Developing a strong values foundation, codified into clear conduct expectations and behavioural norms 
  2. Building a leadership team that models and reinforces values and expectations, both as a group and as individuals 
  3. Designing a new organisation model, with clear and consistent roles, responsibilities, norms and decision-making processes, with the prioritisation of a strategic people and culture function. 
  4. Strengthening organisational governance and oversight of people, conduct and culture 
  5. Addressing outstanding reporting issues and lay the foundation for a strong future speak up environment.

We’ve listened. We’ve acted. And we are taking accountability. And if you want to understand more from the Principia report, and the actions we’ve taken so far, you can find them in the full prospectus.