The Hidden Costs of Workplace Misconduct in Financial Services
Workplace misconduct comes at a cost, but many organisations only see part of the picture.
While tribunals and settlements can carry a significant financial burden, the wider impact is often hidden in increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, employee turnover, recruitment costs and reputational damage.
Join Ash McDowell, Chief Financial Officer at Culture Shift, and Christine Bonney, Head of Culture Transformation, as they explore the true cost of workplace misconduct in financial services and what organisations can do to reduce both risk and cost.
Using sector-specific data, Ash demonstrates the potential financial impact of workplace misconduct across financial services organisations of different sizes, helping leaders across HR, Compliance, and Finance better understand where costs arise and how they accumulate over time.
Christine then explores the cultural factors that can contribute to misconduct within financial services environments, including power imbalances, barriers to speaking up and the challenges organisations face when issues go unreported.
In this session, we explore:
- The direct and indirect costs of workplace misconduct in financial services
- How absenteeism, turnover and lost productivity impact organisational performance
- The financial implications of investigations, grievances, tribunals and settlements
- Cultural factors that can increase risk, including power dynamics and barriers to reporting
- How organisations can identify and address issues before they escalate
- Practical strategies to reduce risk, improve culture and demonstrate measurable savings
.png)
What we're reading
Latest insights from the front lines of workplace culture.
%20(1).png)
The NDA Ban Under the Employment Rights Act: What It Means for HR
When you can no longer buy silence, you have to invest in safety. That's the shift HR teams now need to plan for. Some organisations have historically leaned on settlement agreements and non-disclosure agreements to resolve harassment complaints quietly, keeping the details contained and the reputational risk low. The Employment Rights Act 2025 closes that option down. Once the NDA ban comes into force, a culture of silence stops being something the law will let you enforce.
Third Party Harassment: The Blind Spot in Most Workplace Harassment Policies
Most harassment policies are built around one scenario: two colleagues, one incident. But a lot of harassment comes from outside the organisation - customers, clients, patients, delegates - and the law is catching up. Learn what third party harassment looks like in practice, where employer liability stands under the Worker Protection Act, and what changes from October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act, including a higher bar for "reasonable steps" and liability from the first incident.
Internal vs External Reporting Systems: What's Best for HR Teams?
Most organisations already have some way for staff to raise a concern: a line manager, an HR inbox, a form on the intranet nobody's touched since 2019. The question HR teams are asking now isn't whether they have a reporting system, it's whether the one they've got is good enough.
Feeling inspired?
Take the first step toward preventative misconduct management with a demo of our Report + Support™ platform. We can show you how to breakdown reporting barriers with anonymous 2-way messaging, and how to act before things escalate with name-matching and pattern-spotting across our analytics dashboard.
