Barry Dell, HR director at Atlas Finance, shares how culture should be lived in every branch, conversation and act of care that ripples from employee to customer.
At its core is what Barry calls the inside-out approach – a cultural strategy that begins with trust, respect and belonging, and radiates outward to the communities the company serves.
Q: A year ago, you spoke to CHRO South Africa about nurturing potential. How have you translated this philosophy into concrete, company-wide practices that employees live daily?
Our philosophy of nurturing potential is brought to life through our inside-out approach, built on the premise that potential flourishes in an environment of understanding, trust and support. This isn’t about isolated training programmes; it’s about embedding growth into our daily culture. We’ve focused on creating a foundation where our 1,500+ employees feel secure and valued, which empowers every one of them to authentically show up.
This starts with our leaders, who are upskilled and encouraged to guide, coach and develop their team members, not just manage them. By ensuring every employee understands what is at the heart of their roles and by connecting to our stated purpose of unlocking opportunities for communities to achieve their needs now, we give their work greater meaning. There is a concrete practice, a growing ritual, of this daily reinforcement of our values of integrity, respect and support, which serve as a compass for collaboration and decision-making in every one of our 280+ branches. When people feel they are part of a family that trusts, values and intentionally invests in them, we are able to partner and connect with our customers wherever they are, and their own potential naturally unfolds and flourishes.
Q: How do you define the inside-out cultural model at Atlas Finance and what makes it different from more traditional people strategies?
The inside-outmodel means we believe that external impact on customers and communities is a direct reflection of our internal culture. Traditional HR strategies can often be compliance-focused or reactive, treating culture as a separate initiative.
Our approach is foundational. We invest deeply in our employees’ experience first, nurturing a values-driven environment where people feel they belong. When this internal foundation is strong, the positive energy, respect and support naturally extend outward to customers. The difference is that culture isn’t a programme or a fancy set of wall posters, it’s the core of our business strategy. The heartbeat. We don’t ask employees to put on a customer service face, we create conditions where genuine care for the customer is the organic outcome of how they are treated themselves.
Q: How do you ensure employees connect their day-to-day roles to the broader purpose of serving communities, especially in a financial services environment where trust is everything?
We make the connection explicit through what we describe as the butterfly effect of our culture. We start by ensuring our people feel respected, trusted and supported internally. An employee who is treated with dignity is equipped to extend that same dignity to one, then another and another customer. We constantly communicate that a transaction is never just a business transaction; it's an opportunity to change someone’s story, whether it’s helping a family pay school fees, or providing a dignified alternative to exploitative lenders.
Trust isn’t built through adverts and smart talk, but is built person-to-person. Therefore, by prioritising the wellbeing and engagement of our employees, (which we measure) we are directly and ultimately investing in the trust our communities place in us. They are the bridge, the vital point at which we meet with our communities and their daily interactions represent the most powerful expression of our purpose.
Q: How do you and your leadership team role-model the behaviours and values you expect to see replicated across the organisation?
Everyone has a customer! Leadership at Atlas Finance recently carefully selected the words being customer obsessed with regard to service. We consciously model the inside-out approach by prioritising our people and communities first. This means my leadership team and I must be accessible; we will listen and we make decisions strongly guided by our values of integrity and respect, not only through short-term goals and metrics.
We talk about our purpose and mission in every meeting, all the time, doing as much as we can to recognise employees who live our values, and we share ongoing stories from the branches throughout every month and that highlight the real community impact of our work. Most importantly, we ask our people to take accountability and trust them to deliver. By delegating authority and encouraging autonomy within the framework of our values, we demonstrate that we believe in their judgement. We show up as part of the Atlas family and in doing so, we reinforce that every leader’s primary role is to support, empower and elevate their teams and leverage upon every opportunity for our teams to perform optimally.
Q: What lessons can other CHROs take about building a cultural model that not only works internally but also scales outward to community impact?
The key lesson is to join the dots explicitly between employee wellbeing and customer and community impact. A culture that scales outward must be authentic and values-led, not a set of imposed rules. HR and people and culture should:
- Start with the why: Ensure every employee understands and connects with the organisation’s higher purpose, which must be clearly articulated and spoken about at every opportunity.
- Empower leaders as culture carriers: The leadership team must embody the values daily; culture cannot be delegated.
- Measure what matters: Look beyond obvious engagement scores to metrics that link employee sentiment to customer trust and community penetration, and hold people accountable for this.
Ultimately, it’s about recognising that your people, your most valuable asset, are the most direct channels to your community. Investing in them isn’t an overhead, but the most strategic, sustainable investment you can make in your brand and your social licence to operate. The key differentiator!
