In the 13 years since we opened the doors of Clearbox, we’ve built a culture we’re extremely proud of. We’ve also, at points, overseen one we’re not so proud of (more on this in part two). That experience – both sides of it – is the reason this post is worth reading. 

Before we get all Joni Mitchell on you, let’s talk about what good company culture looks like.

Culture isn’t a perk

One of the most useful reframes we’ve made over the last 13 years is this: culture is not the stuff around the work. It is the work.

Every decision a business makes – how you handle a difficult conversation, how you respond when someone makes a mistake, how you hire and how you fire – is a cultural act. The perks matter, and we’ll get to them shortly. But perks without substance are just nicely painted walls in a house with rotten foundations.

What makes Clearbox feel different, from the inside, is that the nice stuff sits on top of something real: a genuine belief that the team’s wellbeing and the business’s success are not in competition with each other. They’re the same thing. When we revisited our benefits package recently (which you can read about here), that belief drove every decision we made. 

Listen first

The single biggest mistake we’ve seen leaders make with culture – ourselves included – is assuming they know what their team needs without talking to them.

We didn’t redesign our benefits based on what looked good in a LinkedIn post. We changed them because of actual feedback from our people. That sounds obvious – it isn’t. It requires creating an environment where people feel safe enough to tell you the truth, and leadership humble enough to hear it without getting defensive. 

When we moved away from unlimited annual leave, for example, it wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise. Unlimited leave sounded great in theory. And for the five years we had it, it mostly was. But over time we noticed that ambiguity without structure sometimes means people take less time off, not more, because they’re not sure what’s acceptable. And on the flip side, others can take significantly more than their colleagues, which puts the load unfairly on the rest of the team. 

So we moved to 25 days plus 10 bank holidays, with the option to buy, sell, or carry days over. 

We now sit down together every year to go through our benefits and make sure we’re giving people what they actually want. It’s one of the best meetings we have. Nothing is off limits.

If your team can’t tell you what’s not working, your culture has a much bigger problem than your benefits package. 

Show up when it matters most

As an agency, we move fast. We’re ambitious, and we ask a lot of our people. The least we can do is genuinely show up for them when life gets complicated.

The change we’re most proud of recently is our enhanced parental pay. New mums get one month’s full pay after their baby is born, followed by the National Living Wage (approx. £457 per week) for months 2-6 of their maternity leave.

New dads receive four weeks on full pay, with the option to split that leave across the first six months and take additional unpaid time. 

We know these aren’t industry-leading numbers, but for a business of our size, they’re meaningful ones. They give people security during one of the most significant transitions of their lives.

This matters for culture in a way that goes beyond the practical. When people see that their employer genuinely supports them at a vulnerable moment, they don’t forget it. You earn a different kind of loyalty. Not the loyalty of people who stay because they have to, but people who stay because they want to.

We also offer paid compassionate and carers’ leave on a case-by-case basis, because life is unpredictable and blanket policies rarely capture everything people go through.

Flexibility needs structure to work

“We’re flexible” is one of the most overused and under-defined phrases in agency culture. 

Everyone says it. And then someone works long days for two weeks straight and doesn’t know if that’s expected, normal, or a problem.

Real flexibility isn’t just the permission to work differently. It’s a framework that makes different ways of working visible and sustainable for the whole team.

At Clearbox we have a shared WFH Thursday – one day a week, everyone has the option to work from home, aligned so collaboration and client availability don’t suffer. We’ve added flexible start and finish times, with the ask that people keep their hours visible on Slack. 

We also built in Homelife Flex – a huge pot of paid hours, approved by a line manager, for the appointments and deliveries and small crises that don’t wait for 5pm.

The principle underneath all of this is give and take. We trust our team to manage their time. In return, we ask them to communicate, to get the work done, and not to log off when a client or colleague needs them. That’s it.

One more thing, and we’re genuinely excited about this one…

From June this year, we’re trialling summer hours. Every Friday in June, July and August, we’ll close at 1pm. Fully paid, no impact on annual leave. Our hope is that it works well enough to make it permanent. We’ll share more detail on this one later…

Growth is non-negotiable

A culture where people don’t grow is a culture people leave. And honestly? They should. If you’re not investing in your team’s development, they’d be right to find somewhere that will.

Every Clearbox team member has a £1,000 annual training budget and clear career pathways from the point they pass probation. We fund additional company training where it makes sense, and we’re introducing ad-hoc clinics and support sessions shaped by what the team actually wants to learn, not just what we think they should.

We also fund major award entries each year. This might sound like a small thing, but it sends a signal: we believe in the quality of your work, and our team, and we think it deserves recognition beyond the walls of this building. Great work should be celebrated, not quietly filed away.

And, because our best hires often come through the people already on our team, we offer a £500 net referral bonus. It’s a small gesture, but it says: you know us, you know what good looks like here, and we trust your judgement.

The nice stuff isn’t fluff

We’ve spent most of this post talking about substance, because substance is what makes culture real. But we don’t want to leave the impression that the day-to-day stuff doesn’t matter, because it does! 

Friday treats (which aren’t always chocolate biscuits…but…). Office socials. A dog-friendly space. Bottomless drinks. Private medical insurance, life insurance, income protection, a health cash plan. These things are part of what makes Clearbox feel like Clearbox. Not because they’re impressive on paper, but because they accumulate into an environment where people feel comfortable, cared for, and genuinely glad to be in the room.

None of it works without the substance underneath. But culture without warmth isn’t much fun to be part of either.

What we’d tell another founder or leader 

Building a good culture is not a one-time project. It’s an ongoing commitment to noticing what isn’t working, being honest about it, and doing something about it before the people you most value start looking elsewhere.

If we had to distill it, it would come down to this: care about your people as people, not just as output. Show that care through actions, in the decisions you make, the policies you write, the moments you show up for. Words are easy. Consistent action over time is what people actually feel.

None of what we do at Clearbox is revolutionary. But a lot of businesses know what good looks like and still don’t do it, because it costs something, or requires admitting something isn’t working, or because it’s easier to write values on a wall than to live by them every day.

We’re NOT perfect. We’re always trying to get better. And we think that, more than any single benefit or policy, is what good culture is actually made of. 

Next week part two will explore what a bad culture looks like, and the damage it can do. 

Coming soon!