THE CHALLENGE
The financial sector crisis was a challenging time for many UK banks and institutions, with the FCA telling banks that, “engaging people with the right behaviours is a fundamental requirement.”
Close Brothers, a leading merchant banking group, had already recognised customer trust was key to its future. A new company vision and values had been agreed and communicated to its twenty-two UK Commercial Division offices. The launch event had generated real optimism and enthusiasm — but the leadership team knew this could easily turn to cynicism if the words of the new values were not visibly translated into action.
WHAT WE DID
Passion talked to people from across the business, gaining valuable insights which informed the resulting ‘Be’ communication programme, designed to clearly articulate the strong link between their Vision & Values and business success.
We designed the ‘Be’ website, a central hub for all internal communication, recognition and success stories.
With a total audience of more than seven hundred people spread across twenty-two sites, we developed an army of local Champions to help develop programme strategy. Workshops equipped them with engagement and recognition skills, with monthly calls helping to ‘pulse check’ progress and agree next steps.
The Champions initiative quickly became the heart of the wider programme.
A series of cross-divisional competitions and campaigns sustained momentum, while output from surveys and site analytics was monitored, showing the impact we were making together.
THE RESULTS
As a result, employee engagement scores increased to 92%, customer satisfaction scores increased and the bank enjoyed record breaking commercial performance.
