Leadership

Improving our workplace culture, Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation

For the Guardians, workplace culture is key to its ability to make good investment decisions. While staff surveys identified a primarily aggressive and defensive operating style, it wanted to achieve a major shift towards a positive and constructive workplace culture.

By changing its definition of key talent from a few individuals to the entire team, the talent programme included leadership coaching, 360 degree feedback, exchange opportunities with offshore peer funds, and linking bonus payments with behaviour.

After four years, the Guardians'€™ workplace is now primarily a constructive culture, where, for example, people feel able to challenge decisions. This has increased its ability to attract, develop and retain talent. The Guardians has been named as the world'€™s best performing sovereign wealth fund.