How working culture shapes the way we deliver for partners

When delivering EV infrastructure at scale, a strong partnership can make a significant difference to a project’s results for both drivers and the site hosts.

We recently spoke with our People Director, Becky Mee, about the role internal values and culture play in delivering better outcomes for partners. Three key themes emerged: values and long-term partnership; culture, people and behaviours; and continuous improvement.

Becky shared thoughtful insights, explaining how these aspects can help build stronger, more meaningful partnerships. Here, we explore her perspectives and the positive impact these elements have on those we work with.

Values & long-term partnership

“As a business, we're in it for the long term. It's not just about the profit; it's actually about making a sustainable difference. So as a result, that means we're careful who we work with, but it also means that we really want to create those relationships.

We've got three core values of: doing it right, people first, and social equity. These are still exactly the same when it comes to our customers. So, what matters to us, matters to them and as a result makes us a good partner because we're aligned.

There's also an element of making sure that what we're doing makes commercial sense, and the commercials have to stack up for our customers as well. Because we're not just in it to make money, that means they know they can trust us because we're trying to put something in place that's sustainable and is going to generate revenue and positive outcomes for both sides. So again, that's coming back to our values.”

Culture, people & behaviours

“Our culture is very heavily focused on behaviour. Over the last 12 months, we've spent a lot of time working on what behaviours really matter at Zest. The five core behaviours that we now have are ones that will make a material difference for our customers, because it's all about making sure that everything we do matters.

We value our teams, and we put a lot of effort into recruiting the right people to work with us. That involves making sure they've got a good cultural fit, in line with our values.

Our culture has really helped us retain and develop good people, which means we're focused on the quality of what we're doing. We're not constantly having to retrain and upskill people. We've got that retained knowledge in the business, which again only benefits anyone we partner with.”

Continuous improvement  

“We're very keen on learning ourselves. We encourage different departments to talk to each other and learn from things that have happened. Continuous improvement is important, and our partners benefit because we're not repeating the same mistakes.

We want to be able to adapt and learn, and that only helps us be better and more efficient. It also helps our customers because they're benefiting from that iteration and innovation.”

Becky’s insight highlights just how essential a strong, supportive working culture can be in creating successful partnerships, as well has how invaluable it is to retain both knowledge and talented people within an organisation. By building an environment where individuals feel engaged and valued, it is possible to maintain and develop deeper expertise and ultimately deliver more effective solutions for our partners.

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