Introduction
Egg is the largest internet-only bank in the world employing 2,500 people across three UK locations and has a reputation for innovation in financial services. Its main current activity is unsecured lending and deposit taking. The organisational philosophy or ‘enduring purpose’ of Egg is to ‘revolutionise customers’ experience of financial services driven through unleashing the power of people’. The Company’s approach to learning, training and development reflects this philosophy. This case study considers how this has found practical expression in the approach and supporting structures in place. As will be seen this places particular emphasis on the role of line managers.
Background
Egg was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Prudential – currently the UK’s second biggest insurer of a major financial services group. The ‘Pru’, as it is popularly known, built its strength and reputation on, in the context of time, an innovative approach to customer services. Questions about changing customer preferences and the long-term future of products through a direct sales force in the mid 90s led to the creation of Egg as an innovative stand-alone subsidiary. Subsequently Egg has been partially floated and considered as a business sale, but at the time of writing will revert to its original status as a company wholly owned by the Prudential. Egg’s successes include the elimination of tiered interest rates for deposits (which has had a considerable impact across the whole sector), the transfer of negative credit account balances at zero cost and lending at guaranteed rates. A venture in France proved to be less successful and demonstrated to Egg that customers may require a very different service in different countries.
Currently, with its reversion to the original ownership status, Egg is entering into a new stage of development. It employs 2500 people across three UK locations (London, Derby in the East Midlands and Dudley in the West Midlands). About half of these staff are customer service associates either working in a contact centre talking to customers over the telephone or via email or processing the requisite paper work. Another quarter are involved in IT – where systems assurance is of particular importance. The remaining staff members are specialists (risk, marketing, human resources, etc) or professional managers, many of whom have extensive financial services expertise.
The 10:10
Given its ‘enduring purpose’, Egg sees its approach to people development as one which extends beyond ensuring that employees acquire the immediate skills required for discharging the job. Development efforts should be consistent with an innovative approach to meeting customer needs.
Egg, beginning with the Founding Directors, has espoused a form of transformational leadership. The argument here is that every human being lives in a context and operates within self-imposed limits i.e. Egg chooses to see that every person operates within self-imposed limits and that it is possible to extend these limits at work through appropriate interventions. In the words of Neil Rodgers, the Chief People Officer at Egg,
“We want to equip people with the means to develop; motivate them to stay and to envisage the future they desire and make it real. People will then use discretionary effort because they have an emotional attachment to Egg. In that way they get what they want and Egg gets what it wants.”
10:10 is therefore an expression that it is not only possible to align individual ambitions with those of the organisation, it is also essential for superior outcomes. Only through people getting to 10 for themselves in the challenges they choose to take on at work, can they deliver at the level necessary for the outcome to be the 10 that Egg wants. This is of course an ideal state, but the aspiration is considered to be meaningful and helpful. What is important is that the staff member is aware of his or her ambitions and recognises the extent to which they can be achieved while working for Egg. If the individual decides to leave as a consequence this is a price worth paying for the overall increase in motivation and commitment. Understanding the motivation and learning preferences of employees is considered key to developing employees who are capable of, and focused on, high performance at work.
According to Neil Rodgers:
“Getting to 10:10 state demands much attention. It is about a good match between what the organisation needs you to do and what you want to do – what energises you.”
There are 10:10 instruments and material available on the HR part of the Egg Intranet. However Neil Rodgers is keen to emphasise that 10:10 is not a process or a meeting, but is best understood as the ongoing relationship the individual has with the organisation, within which the individual gets the opportunity to fully use their talents. It’s the operating practice (in every exchange between people) of thinking what actions will take place as a result of this conversation that have the best chance of creating outcomes that are a 10 for Egg and a 10 for us. From this practice, complex and unpredictable organisation design and results will emerge. Egg is anxious that development and performance management processes do not become paper-intensive, compliance rituals. The idea is that the 10:10 becomes ‘part of the DNA of the company’ (to use Neil Rodger’s words).
Currently Neil Rodgers is looking at extending the ways he can monitor progress without creating bureaucratic processes – such processes could lead to negative reactions in an area which depends on personal willingness and commitment. To help achieve this balance, progress and attitudes are monitored through the extensive use of employee feedback from surveys and from 200 face to face interviews a month.
The role of the manager
Egg strongly believes that people managers have a crucial role to play in building and sustaining employee commitment. It is evident that authentic commitment is vital if the 10:10 philosophy is to ‘become part of the organisation’s DNA’. As well as commitment, people managers need the necessary skills. Here Egg is in the fortunate position of being able to clearly identify those employees who manage others. Some 400 of the 2500 people are in such positions and are identified on the ‘Buzz’ system.
Over the last eighteen months Egg has invested in creating an infrastructure of programmes to equip these people managers with the necessary skills and understanding. A required event is a three day ‘know your people’ course which includes tools and techniques to allow the manager to identify starting-points and aspirations and get into rich conversations with their people. This course develops an understanding of how to recognise people’s motivations, development needs and career aspirations at work, so they can help people move from unconscious choice to conscious choice in what they take on in their work. A more skills orientated course ‘committed conversations’ is available so managers can develop competence in the conversations that allow people to choose.
These managers are evidently pivotal to making Egg’s enduring purpose a reality. New people are given an outline of what to expect from their manager and from life at Egg at the induction and are encouraged to give early feedback if these expectations are not met.
This approach naturally leads to development being tailored to the individual and to meeting the needs of both immediate outcomes and long term career growth. Egg does not accept that there is a clash between these, just as it embraces the paradox that the greatest success will only come where Egg and the talent of each person working for Egg are fully expressed and satisfied. It’s the only rational choice to make.
As Neil Rodgers puts it:
“The 10:10 must not be something that you have to do. It is neither a single conversation nor a series of conversations. We want it to become as natural as the normal social exchanges that take place in day-today work”.