After a few years of restructuring, we spearheaded a project to bring Telefónica Tech back to what their people valued in their culture. Through honest conversations, analysis, and direct engagement, our cultural playbook reconnected their greater ambitions to the day-to-day feelings and functions that make it a great place to work.

Telefónica Tech has been rapidly growing in UK&I region. When we began work with them, they were essentially a new business comprising four different acquisitions looking to establish a shared set of behaviours to enable their new shared ambition.

Our commission was to develop a cultural framework for leaders, managers and colleagues – c. 1500 colleagues in all – focused on creating a platform for future success through alignment with global values and all in support of their global strategy.

This project was designed and delivered in partnership with their HR function, and we worked primarily with the Exec Team to develop the narrative and articulate the five key behaviours.
Our research began with interviews with senior stakeholders to establish strategic need and a wider lens on the culture. We then ran eight focus groups with 60 colleagues in cross-functional, cross-business colleagues to understand their experience on the ground and test some initial ideas. This was all supplemented with findings from an employee engagement survey HR had recently carried out capturing 500 respondents.

We then defined the behaviours and created the culture playbook, setting out how culture and behaviour as the catalyst for growth and success. This document directly links behaviour with outcome, is explicit in what behaviours look like in action through the punchy ‘3 things in your locker’ section, and it clearly demonstrates how they will manifest for leaders, managers and colleagues.

After a highly successful year, Fortune named Telefónica Tech one of the most innovative companies of 2025 – and the Telefónica press release emphasised the importance of culture in this achievement:

“Telefónica has been recognized for its exceptional leadership in innovation and its impact on the European business landscape, highlighting, above all, the culture of innovation that exists within the company.”