Our work

Creating cultures that work as hard as you do

 
 

Read our case studies and find out how our work is inspiring better workplaces all over the world.

 

From fragmented corporate cultures to startup power struggles, we tackle culture changes and challenges for companies at every growth stage. Whether you’re in a remote-team of 5 people or hybrid-working with 100, we’ll help create the culture that means your company outlasts every round of investment you pitch for.

Building Operating Systems

 
 

Creating a global Operating System for an Intelligent Automation consultancy

 

90 people

12 months

Challenge

Mergers and acquisitions are exciting, impactful…and let’s be honest, challenging. Combining the data-driven and people-focused tech capabilities of 3 different companies, based across the UK, North America and Latin America, the newly formed team at Cognition knew that if they wanted to achieve their goal of advancing technology solutions that deliver accelerated growth, they needed to ensure they had a intentionally created, cohesive and collaborative culture, from the moment they merged.

Our job was to understand the existing cultures of the individual companies, plus with the cultural nuances of five different countries, and build a culture that represented the combined vision and mission of this newly merged company.

    • Aligning the leadership team: a newly created leadership team needs the space and tools to progress (and quickly) from forming to norming to performing. We established the rituals to make this happen; from communication to collaboration to decision-making, we embedded the leadership habits required to set the tone for a people-first, high-performing, international team.

    • Defining the direction: to support the fast growth of a freshly formed team, setting the direction and how you’re going to get there is key. Through designing a clear organisational structure, defining roles and responsibilities and building culture into the team’s OKRs, we set the foundations for an aligned, empowered and accountable team.

    • Designing the end-to-end employee experience: we co-designed Cognition’s people experience, embedding artefacts which document what it is like to work at the company from beginning to end and providing the team with tools to deliver that experience; from recruiting and onboarding, to performance and progression and beyond.

  • Creating a connected and collaborative international company culture requires input and ownership from leadership and every employee across the organisation. The structure, systems and rituals that we created have combined the cultures of three companies and three continents and provided Cognition with a cohesive culture that is tangible, scaleable and understood across the company, globally.

  • “The Future Kind supported us during one of the biggest changes in our startups history. Their adaptability, relationship-building, and tailored approach make them an invaluable partner for any organisation navigating mergers, cultural integration, and rapid growth. They took the time to build a deep understanding of our unique working dynamics, enabling them to align ambitions within our leadership team, and develop a people-first, high-performing, international culture, that is now upheld by our Culture Champion community which they helped establish.”

    Katie Swannell-Gibbs, UK CEO

  • Redefining market positioning to safeguard the future

    12 months
    750+ people

    Our job was to create a collaborative, action-oriented culture which streamlined this bold new direction and eliminated pesky silos.


    “We couldn't have achieved what we did without working with The Future Kind Collective. They supported us through one of the biggest changes in Insights 20 year history. Their collaborative, engaging and culture-led approach supported our leadership teams to understand the change and the impact on their teams. They set our leaders up for success from the beginning so that they could role model the change that we wanted to achieve. In addition, they made sure that this change would have a sustainable and lasting impact, and wasn’t a short lived idea.”

    Alison Sams, Head of Marketing

  • Embedding value proposition into processes and beyond

    6 months
    40 people

    We needed to help Launch identify their unique strengths and craft and embed a value proposition that would shine in a crowded, fast-evolving market.


    “We were all totally blown away. I did not realise going into the process that we were going to come out with a semi-populated blueprint for our future. It really is incredibly comprehensive and the time that you have taken to make it us (which has really brought a big smile to my face) and the detail that has gone into this process has far surpassed what I had imagined the outcomes to be.”

    Jaye Cowle, Founder + CEO

  • A challenger bank, challenging how banks build culture

    4 months
    36 people

    Our job was to turn the seed of culture GB Bank had planted into set replicable behaviours, rituals and systems they can rely and deliver on.

    “The Future Kind Collective helped us to turn our culture from a shared feeling into something tangible which runs through every part of the business. Before working together, we lacked a concise articulation of our purpose, vision, values and people experience, and many of the team felt that they didn’t see our values show up in our everyday interactions. Nat and Alicia's high energy, engaging and agile approach resonated incredibly well with our team and made them a pleasure to work alongside to deliver this project - which will be an enduring linchpin for how our culture evolves.”

    Jenna Baker, Chief People Officer

 

Offsites with impact

 
 

A 5-day culture hackathon for a rapidly growing Fintech startup

50 people

1 month

Challenge

How do you develop a strong, proactive culture when you're a rapidly growing, international and remote tech startup? How do you turn the founding team's dream culture into reality so that their teams can understand, connect with and help to embed it in their work? Having already created something they were incredibly proud of (a trade finance platform connecting local entrepreneurs with investors), Finverity’s founders wanted to use their 2023 company retreat in sunny Turkey to promote cross-team collaboration and boost proactivity through working together.

Our job was to create a retreat experience that broke down barriers and tangibly improved their culture, all while being fun and engaging during 40 degree heat 🥵

    • Know your customer: our 90-minute discovery workshop with the CEO, COO and Head of Ops gave us a good understanding of their ambitions and challenges so that we could design a programme that directly responded to these.

    • Putting our tech hats on: with two decades of combined experience working with tech teams, we embraced our inner engineers. Our mission? To craft a fun, dynamic, and actionable 5-day culture hack-a-thon. This involved identifying the problems to solve, crafting user stories, setting their culture acceptance criteria (aka company values and behaviours), and coming up with prototypes that directly responded to challenges within their teams and could be implemented the very next week.

    • Setting up for success: the value didn’t end when we boarded our flights home. After the retreat, we curated a handy toolkit which included a detailed write-up of the findings and ideas from the retreat and an actionable roadmap. This treasure trove included step-by-step guides, creative frameworks, and lots of resources to capture the week's magic and maintain the momentum for building on what they had achieved in their time together.

  • In our check-in with the founders one month after the retreat, the CEO and COO reported that they had observed more proactiveness and communication, higher levels of productivity and increased cross-team collaboration. Win, win, win!

    • A comprehensive team retrospective

    • A refined and measurable set of company values

    • A people-serving culture handbook

    • A new set of easily implementable team rituals with immediate impact

    • Toolkit of frameworks, tools and resources to continue the great work

    • An embedding action plan

  • “The Future Kind thought of every single step of our customer journey. Every day was super engaging and thoughtful, and they designed workshops that perfectly resonated with our tech-focused, international team. I was also blown away by the detail and quality of their notes and collation of what happened on the offsite and the really practical tools you have given us.”

    Symmie Swil, COO

  • Half-day summit for a sustainability data platform startup

    1 month
    65 people

    Our job was to reflect on the year past and pinpoint the learnings and opportunities ahead of us. We facilitated exploration of the future and what we need to do to make sure we can act on the dream.

    "They were MUCH better than last year. Really liked the set up of it all."

    "I was surprised by the variety of topics that we covered and the honesty and ease in which people participated."

    Offsite participants

  • Collaborative design of new rituals and behaviours

    1 month
    15 people

    Our job was to reflect and celebrate the successes and the hurdles the team has overcome, then collaborate on the design of human-centred ways of working.

    Through offsite impact data and feedback, the LSE Generate team felt 18.7% more aligned and 9.5% more connected after the offsite.

 

Facilitation for culture development

 

  • Design-led approach to leadership development

    4 month
    200 people

    Challenge:
    When scaling speeds up, it’s important to reflect on your leadership frameworks–it’s part of the scaffolding keeping things moving! That’s what the Hotjar called us in for. We imagined a consistent leadership development programme, which focuses on balancing people-centred approaches with building high-performing, accountable teams.

    Impact:
    With a guide for consistent leadership development programme, Contentsquare has the foundation for strong, productive teamwork and healthy communication. Leadership improvements not only boost retention and productivity but also are a gift that keep giving, bringing lasting impact as you continue to scale.

  • Collaborative and transformative Feedback series

    2 months
    90 people

    "I would absolutely recommend your services to others. The collaboration and ease of working together stood out the most. You brought so much expertise to the table, while also listening to and acting on our feedback. The workshops were fantastic, and while we discussed the possibility of smaller groups for remote sessions, everything worked well overall. We did cram a lot into the first session, but we quickly adjusted and improved. Everything was marketed and described accurately, with lots of extras I wasn’t expecting, like the wrap-up report and the embedding plan."

    Carol Paddison, Head of People at Attest

 

Like the sound of creating a culture your people, customers and investors will love? 

 

Culture change isn’t a magic fix (if it was we’d be out of the job and sipping guaros in Costa Rica right now). Our culture projects can take anything from 2 weeks to 6 months to complete and roll out for your company. We play really well with HR, and we help do all the critical work your Head of People can’t get round to alone.

Whatever your team size, company stage, and current goals, we can build out a package that’s right for you and your budget. 

Want to create a stellar employee experience right now? 

Reach out before sh*t hits the fan.