Managing change throughout the organisation

With the size and complexity of the innovations NAB had introduced, a carefully managed strategy was needed to roll out these changes to their employees.

Research has shown that 50 percent of a company’s brand is built through face-to-face customer interactions. So for NAB to make the “more give, less take” promise real for customers, they had to draw on the strength of their people to act in what they called “The NAB Way”.

“The NAB Way” philosophy was based on the desire for NAB to be “wise, open and optimistic” and this attitude had to be evident in all customer interactions. An employee engagement strategy was developed to explain that how employees did their job was just as important as what they did and could either build or damage the bank’s reputation.

The bank faced several challenges. Like most employees of large organisations, they were time poor and constantly flooded with different messages and methods of communication. The research showed that employees wanted more opportunities to discuss business changes with their people leaders to help build their understanding. Two innovative communication tools were developed to meet these needs:

• The “It’s Our Time” Virtual Event – an ‘online conference’ which gave every Personal Bank employee access to a “live chat” with the bank’s Senior Leaders.
• The “Meeting in a Box” – a complete guide to introduce “The NAB Way” to all Personal Banking employees.

The aim of both these tools was to help employees understand what the new initiatives meant for customers, why NAB wanted to do things differently and what their role was in the overall change.

The bank also developed a program called “Working Together the NAB Way” which enabled senior leaders in the organisation to spend half a day working in the front line to make sure they hear directly from their customers and better understand the work environment of the front line employees.