Defining Values Through Lived Culture at Skipton Building Society

Client profile

Skipton Building Society is one of the UK’s largest and most trusted building societies, with a strong heritage, purpose-led ethos and a continued focus on serving members and communities. As a values-driven organisation, culture plays a critical role in how Skipton operates, makes decisions and delivers for its customers.

Client requirement

As the organisation evolved, Skipton recognised the need to bring greater clarity and consistency to its values and behaviours. While a strong sense of culture already existed, values and behavioural expectations had developed organically across the business. The challenge was to understand what was already in place, capture how people were actually behaving day to day, and translate this into a clear, authentic values and behaviours framework that reflected the lived experience of colleagues.

Our approach

Miles Advisory took a research-led approach, starting with a deep review of existing values, behaviours and internal materials to understand what already existed across the organisation. We then facilitated a series of workshops with colleagues from across the business, focusing on how people described working at Skipton and how behaviours showed up in practice.

Using this insight, we worked collaboratively with Skipton to rewrite and refine the values and behaviours, ensuring the language was clear, relevant and grounded in reality.

Impact 

The result was a refreshed values and behaviours framework that felt authentic, credible and owned by the organisation. The work provided a shared language for culture, supported clearer leadership expectations and strengthened alignment across the business – creating a solid cultural foundation for Skipton’s future.