_Embedding purpose: our journey so far
Knight Frank recently contributed to the Business in the Community (BITC) McKinsey report Learnings from Businesses on Embedding Purpose – People, Culture and Structure, which launched on 31st March.
Having purpose is not an “add-on” or a “nice to do”. It is your reason to exist, is fundamental to your long-term success, and is your pathway to meeting sustainability and ESG priorities.
People
Purpose starts with and lives or dies by the involvement of people – no company can credibly lead and act without taking their people on the journey with them.
Culture
Organisational culture ensures authenticity and longevity of purpose. The responsibility of delivering purpose is increasingly allocated across the entire Executive Team, including commercial and functional roles. Cross-functional teams are increasingly coming together to deliver ESG initiatives.
Employees should be involved from the outset, this enhances a sense of ownership and belonging. “Purpose Champions” help embed purpose-driven decision making and action at every level of the organisation.
Employee development should evolve to include sustainability and purpose related learning. Learning and development needs to evolve constantly to meet rising stakeholder expectations and regulatory demands.
Structure
To fulfil your purpose, you must fully embed sustainability and responsible business ambitions into your operation model. Purpose is then integrated into your ways of working right from the roots of the organisation, and therefore make it much harder to overlook when it comes to decision-making and employee engagement. Top-down and bottom-up approaches should be combined when defining and driving purpose and focus areas.
To read more about the BITC report and their drive to embed purpose in organisations visit: https://www.bitc.org.uk/business-in-the-community-and-the-sustainable-development-goals/
Our Journey
Knight Frank are committed to operating a business driven by ESG and implementing it at the core of everything we do. That's why we've created our ESG Taskforce to lead our efforts in this area, alongside Building Foundations (our responsible business programme), to ensure we are always at the forefront driving this agenda.
We are currently conducting a materiality assessment with our employees, clients and suppliers which will drive our strategy going forward.
Even though Knight Frank have been focusing on this for over ten years, we still believe that we are at the start of our journey.