Benedictine Wisdom, Not Just Good HR, Nurtures a Sacred Corporate Culture

When Stephen Bampfylde and his co-founder of Saxon Bampfylde, Anthony Saxton, decided to form an executive recruitment firm in 1986, they first went to the service of communion in Westminster Abbey — one of the great churches in London. They wanted to dedicate their project to God.

The first year of their collaboration proved immensely successful, during which they were also asked by their respective Church of England vicars to become churchwardens, taking positions of responsibility in their local churches. “We took that as a sign,” Bampfylde says.

Ever since, they have dedicated the business to the practical manifestation of values that they believe are of God. But this conviction is not only a private matter. They also feel certain that the business world desperately needs the presence of the Sacred. Conventional corporate culture, driven by profit margins, quarterly reporting and share value alone, dehumanizes workers. The whole-person wellbeing of individuals and the wider culture is being systematically undermined. Moreover, whilst this predicament might be recognised by many concerned people, what is distinctive about Saxon Bampfylde is a recognition that spiritual wellbeing is a crucial issue to address. The business is not only aiming better to serve its customers and sustain its staff but to play a part in tackling a spiritual crisis that is widespread in countless soulless, high-pressure workplaces.

Survival of the Fittest

The problem shows up in various ways but take the question of how employees are recruited and developed. “Most graduate recruitment schemes are essentially a Darwinian hiring process, with the results that two-thirds of individuals end up leaving and only one-third staying long term,” Bampfylde explains. Such a high-performance, financially-focused culture breeds internal competition that leads to excessive staff turnover and disrespect for those whose skills lie elsewhere.

Similarly, in terms of employee development, the focus is on income maximisation and treating employees as units of labour. For example, many London city firms explicitly prioritise fiscal targets over the employee as a whole person; the person who meets their targets is promoted and those who don’t are let go. Recruitment in the UK has, in essence, become a soulless byproduct of hypercapitalism.

This mode of management can be expressed quite concretely. Pervasive HR systems have employees in highly competitive firms greeted each morning with a report on revenues coupled with an assessment tracking whether they’re on course to receive a bonus that year.   “A company that has a few individual star performers readily overlooks the impact on their other employees, who are treated as also-rans,” Bampfylde says.

Alternative Forms of Capitalism

Of course, Saxton Bampfylde is not the first company to be alarmed by the effects of such behaviour. What many have found is that their internal values and goals come into conflict with the aims of other stakeholders, particularly shareholders who are incentivized to seek short-term financial gains.

Family businesses, not so beholden to quarterly reporting, can be different. “They are inclined to take a longer perspective, honouring their ancestors and conscious of what they will hand on. I know one family-owned bank, which is older than the Bank of England, and they regard themselves as humble clerks, though they are very successful.”

“Alternative forms of capitalism are needed,” Bampfylde says, “Ones that better recognize the productive tension between profit and values. We clearly need to forge a world that is shaped by values, not by exploiting people and places alike. Similarly, whilst work is clearly very important to human beings, it can be framed in a sacred way – not purely as a way of securing material wellbeing, but as a mode of human creativity that is itself a reflection of the creativity of God.”

The idea of work as a whole has much to gain from a sacred vision to inform and shape what work means to humanity. So what is the secret of Saxton Bampfylde’s success? It can be summed up in a name: Saint Benedict.

Round Rooms and Careful Listening

Bampfylde discovered Saint Benedict in the late 1980s. “My co-founder, Anthony, was taken to a Benedictine abbey called Alton Abbey and was impressed,” Bampfylde continues. “He invited me, too, and I was fascinated. We saw instantly that the way the monks were living together could inform the firm we were building as the abbey and the company are both communities of people working together.” The Rule of Saint Benedict, written in the sixth century CE and serving as the  core manifesto for any Benedictine Abbey, became their  guidebook.

Consider how it shapes the way that each employee is valued. The advice from the Rule is utterly practical and, in a modern business setting, can shape the way each employee is valued. Benedict describes the shape of the Chapter House, which is the room in which the whole community meets. The design is always circular so that the monks sit in the round, allowing each to have an equal presence and voice. “We, too, ensure that every employee can be heard,” said Bampfylde. “Benedict says that the newest member needs to be listened to carefully, partly because they may be a little naïve but also because with that naivety may come insights that are penetrating and useful.”

This approach is also a facet of the Christian belief that each person is created in God’s image — which is an idea that also transcends a specific faith tradition. The fundamental concept is witnessing and respecting the indelible, inextricable sacredness of each fellow human. . “A cardinal sin in our firm is, therefore, to disrespect somebody, to be rude to them.”

Benedict’s Rule shapes the structure of the firm, too. Benedict argues that an Abbot is needed to lead the monastic community, as a person who can hold the vision and be accountable for bringing those ideals into being. However, as a community grows, Benedict observed, it is necessary to appoint Priors, who are individuals with management responsibility for groups of monks within the wider community. Similarly, if Bampfylde can be thought of as the Abbot, he works closely with Priors, who act as team leaders.

That kind of organisation may not seem so original, but Benedict’s Rule does not stop with the leadership. Take the figures who attend the gates of a monastery, corresponding to office receptionists. Benedict said that all who visit the monastery should be welcomed as if they were no less a person than Jesus, which means that the individual who greets visitors is a fundamentally important person. This is sacred hospitality in action.

“Our receptionists are crucial to the firm,” Bampfylde explains. One sign of this evaluation is that the company’s receptionists have remained as employees for decades, when most company receptionists are more likely to  move in months.

Knowing Your Flock

Another facet of Saxton Bampfylde’s care of employees tackles the issue of internal competition, which can turn maligned when the focus is  on financial performance. “Saint Benedict says, I think absolutely brilliantly, that you should sow so the strong have something to strive after and the weak have nothing to run from. In the workplace, this translates into an environment that treats everybody as a unique individual,” Bampfylde explains.

The questions that Bampfylde asks are related to the questions Benedict instructed Abbots to keep in mind. What does someone need at this point for their own development? How are the things that challenge them allowed to be present alongside the things that they find easy? “Benedict insists that the Abbot and the Priors should know their flock, which means knowing staff as individuals – understanding where they are in their life, what’s going on in their life, so as to be of service to them as they are contributing to the life of the company.”

“It’s about listening to people,” Bampfylde says. “It’s also about making sure they stay focused on the task and there is a task, which in the Benedictine Rule, is sustaining a monastery that is a school for the service of God.” One tangible reflection of these values is that the firm is now employee-owned. For Bampfylde’s firm, this has become an effective way of instilling the Sacred to develop and deepen company culture.

Bampfylde continues: “Over the lifetime of the company, we have supported colleagues who have gone through very tough times and they have repaid that by committing careers of 20 years or more. And this is not about a kind of secret utility. The spirit is of one of genuine goodwill, from which follows unsought rewards.”

Do You Believe in Narnia?

Saxton Bampfylde is an executive recruitment firm, so how does the influence of Benedict determine their own recruitment practices? Again, the sense of the Sacred makes every difference.

Some of the firm’s  requirements are traditional. For example, they look for people who are appropriately educated and driven. But then comes a difference. The company’s recruitment search includes a specific question. After a check of awareness of “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis, Bampfylde will ask: do you believe in Narnia – referring to Lewis’s mythical world in which lives a sacred sensibility? Bampfylde is interested whether, in one way or another, a potential employee has any conviction that the world of business is not the only world that might matter to human beings, and that there are things that matter alongside money?

“This has made a staggering difference for us. If I look at the leaders of our business now, the Chief Executive joined as a graduate, the Deputy Chair joined as a graduate, the key leaders of our practices all joined as graduates,” Bampfylde says.” They have stayed in the nearly 40 years since we started, evolving together. We simply don’t suffer from employee churn.”

Colleagues should feel free to bring their whole self to work and not be implicitly invited to hang up who they are with their coat at the office door. “Sometimes we make a mistake in recruitment, of course,” Bampfylde says.

It is also worth pointing out that not all employees share the explicitly Christian commitments of Bampfylde himself. But the particularities of his convictions result in inclusivity as opposed to harsh restrictions or exclusionary antics. They foster respect for other people whose sense of the Sacred finds a home in various traditions, as well as those who turn to no particular tradition. Each employee is given space to pursue charitable work, for example.

When it comes to commemorations and festivals, specifically Christian rituals will be part of the celebrations offered in an open and entirely voluntary spirit. “We find that many people want to come along to, say, services of communion, not in spite of but because of their own commitments and affiliations,” Bampfylde explains. The firm has developed a Sacred-centered environment that celebrates multi-faith traditions and individual spirituality — proving that love is the uniting undercurrent and wellspring for actions.

Recruitment to Change the World

Saxton Bampfylde has faced criticism. The most public instance was when the company became the target of the British satirical magazine, Private Eye. “There was a marvelous period of time when they decided to target us and for about two or three issues in a row, they printed our mission statement in the section called Pseuds Corner. But in fact it was wonderful. Free publicity. The number of people who read it and came to talk to me,” Bampfylde recalls. Clearly, a firm grown from the roots of inclusive spiritual conviction spoke to people.

Benedict is not forging the internal culture of the company alone. The spiritual element is reflected in the firm’s activities in the wider world, as well. The goal is to effect change by developing business leaders who seek to do well by their organisations, not only commercially but spiritually; not only internally but also with a focus on the external impact they might have.

“We’re quite picky about who we work with and who we don’t,” Bampfylde explains. “The clients select us, and we select the clients.” That mutuality is also important not least because the Rule implies that if Saxton Bampfylde begins working with another organisation, it is bound to take care of that relationship as much as it does employee relationships.

A personal trust in the power of the Sacred has remained central to Bampfylde’s work across the years. “I find it remarkable that the resonance of Benedict’s Rule and the spirit of the monasteries reaches across 1,500 years. I love Andrew Carnegie’s great phrase, the man who dies rich dies disgraced,” he adds.

The Rule of Saint Benedict speaks of a different kind of wealth to be pursued. This resonates with many seeking less transactional, more values-driven ways of existing in modern society. To meet and lean further into that desire, the monasteries of yesteryear can help the organisations of today manifest that both practically and in terms of vision.

Benedict wrote, “He should first show them in deeds rather than words all that is good and holy.” Saxton Bampfylde demonstrates that living by the Sacred, championing the good and holy, is not only possible; it makes good business sense and makes business good.

By Mark Vernon