Co-creating L&Q’s cultural
foundations to deliver an
exceptional resident experience
Impact in a nutshell
We evolved a unified cultural framework that serves as a critical enabler for L&Q’s new strategy, providing a “common language” for a 4,000-strong workforce to help drive organisational resilience and competitive advantage in a changing sector landscape.
Co-created by 3,000+ voices to ensure the new values are not just “corporate speak” but are authentically owned by the people who deliver for residents every day.
Helping to bridge the gap between strategy and everyday action, equipping 100% of leaders to lead their teams with greater confidence during a period of profound regulatory and sector shifts.
Context
L&Q, one of the UK’s largest social housing providers, is transitioning through a pivotal strategic period, shifting its primary focus from building new homes to the management and maintenance of existing ones. Operating in a climate of increased public and government scrutiny, L&Q recognised that providing homes for 250,000 people required a more consistent, unified way of working to meet modern maintenance standards and resident expectations.
Challenge
Despite a strong heritage, L&Q faced a disconnect between resident expectations and their daily experiences, compounded by negative media attention that impacted the sector’s public image. Internal data revealed that while the values were well socialised, and colleagues were aware of them, they were not consistently felt and seen in practice. Furthermore, a history of mergers had created notable differences in ways of working across the organisation, contributing to silos that risked operational efficiency.
Vision for impact
L&Q’s vision was to establish a unified cultural framework that would serve as a critical enabler for their new strategy and a “common language” for their 4,000-strong work force. Following a period of significant growth and multiple mergers, they sought to articulate a new cultural framework that would bridge the gap between strategic ambitions and the daily colleague, customer and resident experience. This process was designed to move the organisation beyond simple buy-in to a state of active accountability, aiming to help every colleague feel empowered to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes.
To deliver their “strategy for tomorrow”, L&Q knew the target culture must honour their legacy while modernising for future challenges. The vision focussed on operational excellence, where evolved behaviours directly tackle felt service challenges such as minimising repeat repairs and reducing customer complaints. Ultimately, they aimed to foster a culture where values resonate equally with office-based and frontline colleagues.
This wasn’t a revolution, but a purposeful evolution. By involving the “authentic employee voice” through deep co-creation, our collective vision was to ensure the framework was relatable and owned by those at every level. By demonstrating the “why,” we sought to convert early sceptics into the project’s most passionate champions, building a robust foundation for the journey ahead.
Approach
We started with a deep-dive discovery phase to get a genuine sense of how the organisation actually works. By listening to over 2,900 people, from leadership and frontline staff to residents, we aimed to look past “top-down” assumptions and tackle the knowledge illusion (the cognitive bias which creates a gap between how we think things work and how they really do!). This approach helped build a greater sense of procedural justice, as people could see that the process was fair and their input mattered. Rather than just collecting data, this “outside-in” perspective was designed to give everyone involved a greater sense of agency, ensuring the new framework was grounded in the daily reality of the colleague, customer, and resident experience.
Harnessing the power of the IKEA effect, the scientifically supported idea that people tend to place higher value on the things they helped make, the framework had to be employee-created to be truly employee-owned. As such, we involved over 3,000 colleagues in co-developing and testing the evolved values. Through five pilot sessions spanning frontline operatives to central support,we refined the language to ensure it was accessible across L&Q’s diverse workforce – resonating equally with the Executive Board and frontline teams on the ground.
To help the change stick, we launched the “Workshop in a Box” (WIAB) programme, supporting 40 leaders to roll out training directly to their teams. Alongside this, a network of c.40 Engagement and Culture Champions was launched to role-model and advocate refreshed cultural expectations amongst peer networks. This approach leveraged social proof theory —the principle that we are more likely to adopt new behaviours when we see trusted colleagues and leaders doing the same. By moving roll-out reliance away from a central mandate, these refreshed values have been better able to take root and spread more naturally across the organisation.
Forward-looking summary
Built on extensive co-creation and leadership ownership, the programme has supported the creation of the cultural conditions needed to drive a step-change in operational excellence. By embedding these evolved behaviours, L&Q is now setting itself up to tackle critical service challenges – creating a foundation designed to reduce customer complaints, minimise repeat repair visits, improve efficiency, and enhance wellbeing. With all leaders feeling equipped to model these values with teams, the organisation has moved beyond simple buy-in to active accountability. This cultural framework now serves as a practical engine for the future, empowering every colleague to deliver on its promise of providing social homes and landlord services that everyone can be proud of.
92% of colleagues felt clear on why evolving L&Q’s values was important for its future ambitions.
88% of colleagues proudly support the evolved values and behaviours.
100% of leaders felt equipped and supported to demonstrate evolved values in their roles after training.
Impact moments
The Pilot Pivot
One pivotal “aha” moment occurred during the rigorous pilot testing phase, where the co-created framework was stress-tested by five diverse stakeholder groups – ranging from frontline operatives to central support functions. This exercise acted as a critical safety net, revealing that certain evolved values and behaviours were potentially susceptible to misinterpretation by teams and individuals. By listening to these early signals, the team was able to pivot and refine the language before organisation-wide launch. This ensured the final framework was not just “corporate speak” but felt genuinely relatable, authentic, and accessible for every colleague.
The Success of “Workshop in a Box”
The early success signals of the programme were supported with the delivery of the “Workshop in a Box” (WIAB) design. A common challenge with culture transformation is maintaining momentum at scale, but the WIAB proved that the training was simple, accessible, and engaging enough for leaders to own personally. By upskilling 40 senior leaders to facilitate these sessions with their own teams, we saw a clear shift from surface-level buy-in to active accountability. Seeing previously hesitant leaders
confidently champion evolved values and behaviours to inspire their teams to embody new behaviours served as incredibly encouraging proof that the roots of the evolved culture were beginning to take hold.
Client quotes
“I’ve had a thirty five year career and I’ve never seen anything as good as this. Your
inclusive, co-creation process – that brings so many people together across all areas of the organisation – is very special. The values are resonating from the Board and leadership – through to caretakers and stewards. You’ve managed to take the best from the past – and move us forward with a culture that will set us up for the future, and create strong foundations for the next phase of our strategy and transformation programme. My advice would be: hire Kin&Co!”
CEO
“We collaborated with Kin&Co to assess and refresh our existing organisational values as we were embarking on a new strategy. They expertly managed a complex stakeholder landscape, ensuring inclusive engagement and co-creation across all levels of the business—from residents and frontline colleagues to senior leaders. Critically, the process was even effective in bringing stakeholders who were initially resistant to changing our values, fully on board. By synthesising a huge volume of rich insight, Kin&Co was able to deliver a simplified, clear cultural framework. This framework, which is built on a new, cohesive set of values, is supported by a clear rationale and compelling narrative that uses language which we are confident will resonate equally with both our executive team and frontline colleagues. We’re confident this will genuinely drive sustainable change across our entire organisation and help us to deliver our new strategy.”
Director of Organisational Development and Change
Our work speaks volumes
