About Nationwide Building Society

Nationwide have won awards for their Management Development offering which is available for all existing and aspiring line managers across Nationwide A suite of 22 topics are available via a blended learning solution, delivered by external experts in each area and supported by internal resources and online learning tools. Topics range from ‘Supporting Career Development’ to ‘Living with Change’ and ‘Resilience’ and can be run as ‘open-programmes’ or for in-tact teams, tailored to specific needs. In addition, the company provide significant support for Management teams across the organisation, facilitating events on and offsite to enable teams to operate more effectively whether they are recently formed, undergoing change or just seeking to further enhance their performance. Tools such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Hay Leadership Styles and Climate assessments are often used to inform these sessions. Hay tool is also used extensively as a way of supporting individual managers to employ a range of leadership styles to create an energising and motivating climate for their people. In some areas of the business, managers will complete this on an annual basis to track progress and focus on ongoing positive change. Managers are supported in a number of ways as they perform their day to day roles. In addition to support from HR business partners, there is also an Employee Wellbeing Team (to support them and their teams), an ‘Ask HR’ telephone service and an online ‘Policy Point’ for them to easily access all employee policies they may need.

One of the most complex challenges is around mental health which can sometimes be difficult to see, understand and talk about openly. At Nationwide they believe in raising awareness and de-stigmatising the issue and finding ways to equip people with practical tools and know-how to support themselves and their colleagues. During 2014 they launched a mental health resilience strategy. The objectives of this strategy included: helping managers understand and build resilience in themselves and their colleagues, developing approaches to create resilient teams and developing an understanding of how good leadership can boost resilience. The new workshop, Building and Managing Team Resilience, was launched, made available to all 2,500 managers and is now integrated into the manager learning and development framework. The company belief is through building resilience they increase the ability of their employees to stay healthy when under pressure. The company also believe that their line managers need to be sensitive and empathetic to deal with colleagues and customers. Through equipping their people with ’emotional readiness’ they can quickly process and act on naturally arising feelings and emotions that arise during the course of a busy, challenging day at work and not allowing them to fester. Diversity Week 2015, the company will host a Mental Health at work event. Facilitated by Adam Spreadbury from the Bank of England, he will talk openly his own mental health and how his employer supported him. Bela Gor from the ENEI will then cover what employers and colleagues need to know to better support mental health at work.

Employee Connect Nationwide has a group of 1,000+ employees called Employee Connect. The virtual group influence business decisions by being consulted on ongoing issues including product design, service improvements, marketing and employee campaigns. The company creates bespoke employee apps to foster greater interaction. For the Annual Awards 2015, the event app had 96% of employee finalists logged in, 796 photos posted, 969 comments, 1,232 status updates, 4,274 likes and over 55,000 visits. The retail division comprises 9,000 employees across 700+ branches and sites. To connect those employees the company have created a Virtual Retail Expo, which enables people to have a better understanding of what other Retail teams do, key contacts, latest news and product information. Corporate cascade Nationwide’s five year Corporate Plan is announced internally in April each year. Following a leadership conference for the top 800 leaders, the corporate plan is then cascaded through every division, department and team within the business over a 6 week period. So every one of our 17,000 employees receives a face to face presentation on our latest business strategy.