Jo James, Head of HR at AJ Bell, shares how this force in financial services has focused on trust, authenticity, and people-first leadership to shape and sustain its award-winning culture amidst business growth.
What's been your journey at AJ Bell?
Jo: AJ Bell is a financial services business based primarily out of the North West in Manchester, and we also have offices in London and Bristol. We're currently at around 1,500 employees, but when I joined the business there were less than 200! We've been through a lot of transformation and growth in that time, and that's our trajectory. The business listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2018, which brought in the different challenges of becoming a public company, but fundamentally, people remain at the heart of what we do, both customers and employees.
What does high-trust leadership mean to you?
Jo: For me, it is about creating the right environment where people feel respected, trusted , and empowered to do their work. It's as much about giving people parameters to be able to operate effectively, rather than it being about rules and policies. But clearly, as a regulated financial services business, there are things we must do at AJ Bell for our customers, to protect their assets which requires good governance and oversight,. So, for us it's very much about striking the right balance.
High trust leadership starts with the strategy, with the senior team and the 'tone from the top' – delivering on what we say we will do, whether that's the plans for the business, our approach to our people, celebrating the successes and being honest when we face challenges.
I think back to us as a business during the pandemic: we took a lot of steps to look after our people and supported by regular communication from our CEO and senior management. Personal messages were incorporated into the communications, to provide reassurance to our teams – we were in it together.
Above: AJ Bell's annual Managers Day, allowing the team to spend time with and hear from different management colleagues from across the business.
While you maintain a formal hierarchy, how have your leaders also embraced the notion of 'anyone can step up to lead, depending on the project'?
Jo: There are certainly leadership tiers within our organisation, with different responsibilities and accountabilities, but there is nothing stopping individuals who are not designated leaders to step forward into different groups. We have, for example, our employee voice forum, where there are opportunities to participate in different discussions with Board members. If somebody is motivated to be part of that, then we absolutely support them.
Each role has a purpose within the structure of what we do. In frontline leadership roles, individuals are doing some of the day-to-day, supporting people with immediate issues that might need resolving, or matters that need to be discussed. But as you progress up the organisation, leadership is changes at the middle tier, where that person is thinking around balancing more with the organisation's needs and goals, and maybe advocating for both sides (staff viewpoints vs senior leadership). Coming up to senior leadership level, it's about building and maintaining trust – maybe on certain occasions it is more symbolic rather than something that's seen all the time and every day, because you're perhaps not having that same level of interaction with individuals each day.
Ultimately, there's got to be an alignment between words and actions; the vision for the business and the execution of that vision. This comes back to being transparent; letting people know what's happening. And for us as a business, a lot of that is about leadership embodying our guiding principles –the values of the business – which then link into our overall principal purpose and strategy, which we call The AJ Bell Way.
What practices or habits help maintain high-trust leadership in your organisation?
Jo: Our guiding principles underpin everything that we do in the business. We talk about that from a strategy perspective, in messaging from the CEO... it's all linked back to the principles. And then that feeds through: for example, training and development programmes, communication around performance management, objective setting, performance reviews, and so on. These are practical implementations and reinforcement of the key things that are important to the business.
And then beyond that, there's communication forums: for example, the CEO spends time with the management population every quarter, giving business updates and talking about what's coming down the line. We talk about the Great Place to Work survey as part of those communications.
How do you drive two-way connection between colleagues?
Jo: We have different levels of management, ranging from your team leader, through to a departmental manager and heads of department. But the expectation of anybody who has responsibility for people is that they meet regularly on a one-to-one basis with their team members – even if it's just half an hour once a month. We expect team leaders and managers to tackle issues as they come up day-to-day in the job, rather than hold them back for a one-to-one meeting.
And then beyond that, we have a performance review structure for our employees against the objectives they've been set and expected behaviours linked to the competency framework that we have. But our directors have what we call 'skip level meetings' where they will meet with the direct reports of their direct reports. It's a great way, I think, to find out more about how people are feeling, what might need to be different, get a feel for culture within a team. It's conversational, going for a coffee together, that kind of meeting.
At a company level, we have 'talent networking events', where we bring our rising stars and star performers to meet with the board and the executive committee. They present on a particular topic, followed by questions and answers, and then we conclude with an informal social afterwards. People can then chat informally over a glass of wine or a beer, or a soft drink.
Above: AJ Bell employees at a Paint and Sip self-portrait event in celebration of Pride Month. How do you drive a culture of respect in each of your teams?
Jo: It starts with us, our leadership – whether it's the departmental manager or the head of department. Leaders have such an influence on how a team operates; how an organisation works. They've got to be interested in people, and making sure that they create the right environment.
At AJ Bell, people can speak up, they can ask questions; can challenge if they don't quite understand how something works or why we do something in a particular way. It is also the basics of communication, for example saying 'Good morning' to people, asking colleagues about their weekend... it starts with those simple interactions that then begin building beyond that into the work itself.
For me, if you can't demonstrate those things, you may not be in the right role if the role is about looking after people and driving
How do you keep your leaders focused on how they show up to maintain trust in tough times?
Jo: For our organisation, that would be driven partially by senior leadership, depending on what the tough time is, and how large the scale of it is. But it would be about the regular communications. Again, when I think back to the Covid period, our CEO was sending out emails weekly to everyone, updating on what was going on and ending with a nice personal message at the bottom. It was that sort of, 'We'll get through this!' that provided that reassurance that our leaders are there, but then that filters down to give guidance to managers on how they respond as well.
How do you measure progress in driving high-trust leadership or culture more formally??
Jo: The obvious one is the Great Place To Work survey. We are very focused on ensuring managers act on the feedback from their surveys. As the HR team, we spend time within the business areas and departments, talking to managers around the outputs of their results, and the key areas that they may need to make progress on which are within the scope of what they can influence.
Related | How Trust in Leadership Fuels Business Performance
What do you think helps leaders become more self-aware of how their behaviours impact trust within their teams?
Jo: The first thing is feedback from their manager – that's where it should start, that relationship.
Beyond that, there are tools like 360-degree feedback, or even 180 feedback, which can be useful, depending on how far you want to go with it. I think with a 360, it probably needs to have some context, for example it is within a leadership development programme or a coaching programme. Again, that can give insights into things that you haven't thought about, maybe for a while or not at all, that you can address or start considering how you might do some things differently.
And of course, there's the feedback from internal or external surveys, like the Great Place To Work survey, where some of the qualitative feedback can be very helpful.
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