Our Culture
At Smiths our culture empowers and enables our people to deliver on our Purpose. Living our five Values every day, in each action and decision that we take, makes Smiths a place where we are happy and proud to work. It’s what makes us reliable, trustworthy, and valued partners for our customers and suppliers and supports the long-term sustainability and success of our business model.
The Smiths Leadership Behaviours incorporate our Values and apply them to delivering for all stakeholders. The seven Leadership Behaviours describe how we work with one another, demonstrate our Values, and create value through our actions. Importantly, the Leadership Behaviours apply to everyone at Smiths – from the shop floor to senior executives. Whatever role we play, we can all demonstrate and develop our Leadership Behaviours to improve and deliver as a team, developing and sharing our talents to support each other and improve our tomorrow.
Our goal is to use the Leadership Behaviours to inspire and help strengthen and shift the Smiths culture to be even more dynamic, inclusive, and focused on delivering results that create value for our people, customers and other stakeholders.
Our values and purpose
We are Pioneers of Progress. For over 170 years, Smiths has been improving our world through smarter engineering. Our technology benefits millions of people every day – making travel safer, supporting sustainable energy transition, efficiently heating or cooling our homes, and helping our world stay connected.
Our values and our commitment to doing business responsibly are more than just words. They influence every decision and help to make Smiths a place where people want to work, an organisation that is valued, and one that people want to do business with.
We consider our people a truly sustainable source of competitive advantage. Achieving the potential of our business means helping our people achieve theirs. We believe in a workplace that respects and values everyone for their diversity, and supports them in being the best they can be.
That means learning opportunities, development plans, fair and transparent reward and recognition. As a global business, that also means opportunities for career advancement. Our colleagues are hard working, ethical and passionate. They stand out from the crowd.
The Smiths Excellence System (SES) is our shared operating model. It's about driving speed and efficiency on a sustainable basis. It's about building a better Smiths.
SES helps build value in our business by supporting consistent execution across six pillars: customer, people, technology, production, programme and supply.
Smiths has always embraced change and SES 2.0 has recently launched, advancing from learning to doing.
SES 2.0 is embedding a culture of continuous improvement while giving our people opportunities to learn and grow, through our SES Academy and black belt programmes. Master Black belts have been appointed in all our businesses and functions to help drive efficiency throughout the organisation.
Our solutions touch the lives of millions of people every day.
We’re proud of our 170+ year history of being pioneers of progress, improving our world through smarter engineering.
We want all our colleagues across Smiths to THRIVE.
THRIVE is our global wellbeing programme designed to help educate colleagues on how to practice self-care, both at home and at work.
At Smiths we focus on seven elements of wellbeing:
- Physical: Taking care of your body and mind through physical activity, a healthy diet and sleep
- Social: Having a supportive and interactive social network breeds success at home and at work
- Environmental: Respecting your surroundings and taking care of our planet
- Emotional: Looking after yourself to help you live your best life
- Financial: Having the tools to manage your money now and for the future
- Occupational: Enriching your job experience for personal fulfillment
- Intellectual: Exploring new ideas and challenging yourself
Every year our Smiths Excellence awards recognise and reward the impressive work of our people, across our whole business, to deliver excellence in everything they do and help drive our business forward.
This annual event highlights those who have gone above and beyond for Smiths, their colleagues and their communities. The award categories are focused on our three priorities of Growth, Execution and People.
Our colleagues working across regions, products and unique technologies are unified by our shared way of doing things: The Smiths Way.
Smiths Day is our annual celebration of who we are, our values and our people. It’s an opportunity to reflect, recognise and thank those who have helped us to reach our goals.
The day is marked by hundreds of local events and activities also focused on having fun with colleagues, celebrating each other and our great company.