Good Employer Guide Live 2026: Employers must ‘encourage people to speak out about bad behaviour’, says Scott Brownrigg director

Employers need to encourage staff to speak out about bad behaviour, Scott Brownrigg’s director of practice has told an event in central London this afternoon.

At Building’s Good Employer Guide Live 2026, a panel of HR leaders from leading architects, housing associations, contractors and consultants shared their expertise on “building organisational cultures and brands in construction and housing”.

Asked how firms should respond to things that negatively impact organisational culture, Scott Brownrigg’s Helen Taylor said they should respond “quickly”.

“We talk a lot about consistency, we talk a lot about being allies and encouraging people to speak out when they see bad behaviour. 

“That can sometimes be really difficult […] especially if you’ve got somebody who you see is in a strong position of power and you don’t like the way they’re behaving. 

“That’s a really hard thing to call out, but we try and encourage people to do that, because if you leave that, if you don’t address that, then basically you’re accepting and your message is that that is fine.”

The event, which was sponsored by Gleeds, RLB and Ryder, also saw Lisa Collen, group director of culture and organisational design at Bromford Flagship LiveWest, discuss good practice on data gathering from employees.

She said such work often gave “good questions, not necessarily good answers”.

She gave the example of data gathering on staff turnover, noting that the organisation had “done a bit of a deeper dive” because they had seen “a bit of a spike”.

“When we looked a bit deeper, we realized that we were making some decisions within hiring where we weren’t setting people up for success with the organization or the culture.”