You might have noticed: we’re never shy of doing things differently here.
We’re proud to be the UK’s largest accountancy B Corp, joining the business movement tackling society’s greatest challenges and we’re on a mission to take everything you thought you knew about accountants and flip it on its head – grey suits, dull corporate offices, brown wooden bureaus and all.
Why are we doing it? To Disrupt. To Lead. And to Make Life Count for our people and our clients.
But what does that mean from day-to-day? And what is it really like to work here at Cooper Parry?
OUR ENVIRONMENT
We’ve put a lot of thought into creating workspaces that our people can’t wait to walk into. Workspaces you’ll tell your friends about. Workspaces that win awards.
We’ve never underestimated the power of colour. Just a splash of the right shade can energise, inspire and motivate. And that’s why when you step into our offices, one thing will hit you straight away: we don’t do grey. Our casual dress code helps with that – why stifle in a suit when complete comfort is only a pair of jeans away?
OUR CULTURE
Our culture is who we are. It’s what makes us unique. It’s our character, our personality. And it shapes our strategy – not the other way round.
It never sits still, it’s constantly evolving, and it’s built by the same people it attracts, retains and develops – passionate, energetic go-getters that live and teach our values.
We put complete trust in our people and give them the power to decide how they spend their days here. We offer flexible and agile working, which means we won’t tell you where or when to work (as long as you’re not sending emails outside our curfew!). And on top of that, we offer open holiday – making sure our people are never short of an opportunity to make life count.
We like to think we know a thing or two about having fun, too. We celebrate every success – big or small, and it’s how we reward our people for everything they do.
Day to day you’ll probably find us by the beer fridge, in the sleep pod, playing pool, table football, darts or video games. And throughout the year our people experience and wellbeing programme, Heartbeat, includes a whole host of activities including our pièce de résistance, CP Parties.
We don’t do any of this because it’s cool. We do it based on a whole load of facts, statistics and evidence relating to productivity, performance and happiness.
In turn, this engagement helps us win awards, and since we’ve been a permanent feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For over the last few years, applications for our jobs and internships have gone through the roof, and we’re constantly attracting those who see the world the way we do.
“But do people do any work?”, “Surely people take the p*ss?”
We’ve heard it all. That’s why we just ask for one thing in return: produce incredible work. Because our strengths-based culture makes sure our people are doing what they’re best at every day, we set high expectations when it comes to performance. But rest assured, if you’re willing to put in the effort, you’ll get a hell of a lot in return.
OUR PEOPLE
A lot of businesses put their clients first, but we think if your people are happy, engaged and motivated, the irresistible client experience is guaranteed to follow.
While our culture is great for attracting new stars to the business, our people are the ones that make it. They’re passionate, proactive and personable – three P’s that any client, manager or colleague loves.
We want everyone at Cooper Parry to be an inspiration; someone you can learn from. And we want them to be able to apply their strengths and talents day in, day out.
That’s why from the recruitment stage all the way through to our Partner promotions – we make sure we get the right people in the right seats. We select them for their talent and their hunger to continuously challenge and develop themselves – not simply their qualifications and past experience.
We focus on giving regular feedback to our people; it’s the cornerstone of learning and development, and the ‘breakfast of champions’ as the saying goes. We set ambitious, quarterly goals for ourselves and we measure progress based on both performance and evidence of living our values.
On top of that, we’re always receiving feedback from our people about what’s hot, and what’s not. Every week we send out our ‘How’s It Going?’ survey, asking everyone to rate their week on a scale of 1-10 and provide any comments where they see fit. It’s a great way for us to shout about any successes and iron out any issues as soon as they arise.
Every six months we do the Gallup Q12 Engagement Survey, and we also send out the annual Best Companies survey which helps us measure engagement against the whole of the UK.