PEOPLE & CULTURE PULSE · ISSUE 8 · AUGUST 2026
A monthly benchmark for People & Culture teams: the talking points that matter and how your people and culture compare, built on Deltabase culture, workforce and talent data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
August made the case that attendance policy is a negotiation, not a memo. Airbus shelved a four-day office rule after strikes, the UK jobs market kept cooling and the government's response on flexible working is still to come. From this issue we read both halves of our name: People (who you employ, what they can do and whether they stay) and Culture (what they say about working for you). This month we look at Energy & Utilities.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
What happened: Reuters reported on 21 August that Airbus had shelved plans to require white-collar staff on site four days a week from September; managers can keep current arrangements, which average two remote days a week. Unions said about 40% of Airbus's 14,000 Spanish workers had joined strikes since July, with protests also in France and Britain.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: Airbus already had a lot to protect. Its Work-Life Balance NSS rose from +37.0% in 2024 to +49.1% in 2025, and its overall NSS from +13.0% to +21.4% on 983 reviews, the highest in our Aerospace & Defence set. People: 18.6% of its workforce sits in Tech roles, the desk-based talent most able to work remotely and easiest for rivals to hire.
So what: Before tightening attendance, check whether flexibility is holding your culture scores up, and which functions could most easily walk.
What happened: ONS estimated 707,000 vacancies in May to July 2026, down 0.8% on the quarter and 2.7% on the year, with 2.5 unemployed people per vacancy.
The Deltabase lens: People: A cooler market reduces exits, not dissatisfaction. Average monthly turnover fell at all four UK-listed energy and utility groups we track between January–July 2025 and January–July 2026: Shell from 0.80% to 0.34%, BP from 0.81% to 0.52%, National Grid from 0.62% to 0.52% and Centrica from 0.54% to 0.44%. Culture: Yet across nine Energy & Utilities Top 100 companies, median Career Progression NSS was −45.5% in 2025.
So what: Falling leaver numbers in a soft market can mask disengagement, so track sentiment alongside turnover.
What happened: As of 24 August, the government had not published its response to the Make Work Pay consultation on flexible working, which closed on 30 April; the proposed reasonableness test is targeted for 2027.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: Work-Life Balance is the topic most exposed to policy change. In Energy & Utilities, seven of nine Top 100 companies improved on it in 2025; Centrica was one of the two that declined, from +6.7% to −2.7%. People: Running a new, documented process takes change capability, and that varies: 7.2% of National Grid's workforce lists change management skills, against 4.7% at Shell and 4.0% at BP.
So what: Document how you assess flexible-working requests now; a reasonableness test will favour employers who can show their reasoning.
+18.5%: median Work-Life Balance NSS across nine Energy & Utilities Top 100 companies in 2025, as monthly turnover fell at every major below.
| Company | Culture: Work-Life Balance NSS, 2025 | People: Tech roles, % of workforce | People: avg monthly turnover, Jan–Jul 2026 (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Grid | +40.4% | 15.2% | 0.52% (0.62%) |
| Shell | +36.3% | 13.0% | 0.34% (0.80%) |
| BP | +28.0% | 10.0% | 0.52% (0.81%) |
| Sector median | +18.5% | – | – |
Source: Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), Work-Life Balance topic, 2025; sector median of ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, National Grid, Centrica, Duke Energy, NextEra Energy and Southern Company. Deltabase Workforce data, Tech function share of workforce. Deltabase Employee Turnover data, average monthly turnover January–July 2026 (January–July 2025 in brackets).
Two very different energy employers. On Culture, National Grid's overall NSS rose from +9.2% to +27.5% in 2025 (503 reviews), the largest gain in the sector, with Supportive Leadership moving from −25.3% to +13.8%. Shell edged up from +17.0% to +18.1% (1,287 reviews), but its Supportive Leadership stayed negative at −8.9%. On People, National Grid is built for change: 7.2% of its workforce sits in Transformation roles against 2.9% at Shell, and its median tenure is 6.5 years against 2.1. Shell is slightly more AI-ready, with 2.6% of staff listing AI skills against 1.9%.
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Sources: Reuters via CP24 (21 August 2026); ONS, Vacancies and jobs in the UK (18 August 2026); Remote Work Europe (24 August 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data; Deltabase Employee Turnover data.