Hansen Beck Case Study: Embracing a culture of change to drive leadership excellence

Hansen Beck Case Study

Embracing a culture of change to drive leadership excellence

In recent years, Nova KBM d.d. has undergone major changes. As a result of ownership change, one of the leading Slovenian banks with a 160-year tradition, has completely repositioned and refocused its operations. Through its storied history, it has seen many changes and shifts and is focusing on its values, compliance, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts and internal culture development.

This focus on a solid and healthy corporate culture is particularly relevant in light of a string of acquisitions that brought many new people to the organization with differing outlooks, attitudes and views. To drive continued success in an increasingly demanding banking market, Nova KBM has emphasized open communication and transparency to build trust among employees and encouraging them to accept responsibility for challenges.

To find out how the bank develops its people to align them with the bank’s vision, we caught up with Aleksandra Brdar Turk , Director Banking Operations at Nova KBM d.d. , who heads the second largest department in the bank. She is responsible for more than 200 people who support almost all banking products and commercial business functions in the bank. In the course of their work, they are in close contact with consumers and businesses, internal customers in sales, compliance, legal, risk, IT and many other departments. They cooperate closely with product development and digital channel development.

Going above and beyond

NKBM already has several initiatives designed and led by its HR department. These include voice-of-employee surveys, improvement initiatives, “skip” meetings, a virtual idea box for workplace improvements and leadership skill training. However, some managers believed there was still room for improvement.

“I felt the programs for developing leadership skills are too general, they tap into basics but lack solid follow-ups which would ensure people put the skills they’ve learned into practice,” explained Brdar.

“When I joined the bank in 2019, I had a great opportunity for kicking things off. I wanted to boost employee motivation and their job satisfaction as well as help them deal with the daily stress and the workload they were facing during important projects the bank was going through, such as the upgrade of the core banking system and the operational merger with another bank. On the other hand, internal customers, especially relationship managers, were not always happy with the service the department provided. I wanted to turn this around.”

The starting point was to meet with other stakeholders in the bank to learn what the teams could do better to support each other. The idea behind this initiative was that improved services for internal customers would result in excellence when it comes to services for end customers.

The second driver was the ongoing optimization of operations and processes, including introducing new IT solutions and the operational merger with another bank which brought on organizational changes which required strong and solid leadership across the department and within individual teams. Communication and motivation were needed to drive change and achieve the desired results.

This was particularly important during a turbulent period in 2020, when NKBM simultaneously dealt with the acquisition of another bank and battled the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic.

“I wanted to focus on two things,” said Brdar. “The first was leadership development of my closest team by a focused and individualized training of management skills, which would help us drive excellence. The second area of focus was change management that would allow us to drive continuous improvement across all aspects of our work. It was all about transforming the workplace culture around change.”

Creating a training program

The training program was based on the current challenges of Brdar’s team and Hansen Beck displayed outstanding flexibility when designing it.

The training program focused on improving the four fundamental principles of leadership: “Ask more of yourself than others expect”, “Ask more of your team members than anyone else would”, “Take a greater personal interest in your team” and “Take away fear from your team members”. These core principles serve as the foundation for leadership success and dynamic business culture.

Currently, the team has undergone two cycles of training, coupled with regular and frequent follow-ups. This allowed the team to refresh what they had learned as well as upgrade their skills and knowledge based on real-life feedback and experience.

At the monthly workshops, the teams covered a broad array of topics, ranging from time and meeting management to providing feedback, delegation and motivation. These topics provided employees with a framework needed to manage their teams effectively while also establishing an atmosphere in which employees felt better connected and open to sharing their experiences and concerns in a trusting environment.

Measuring progress

To measure progress, apart from qualitative feedback in the regular follow-ups with her team and skip meetings directly with the employees managed by her colleagues, Brdar introduced 360-degree leader evaluations that allow employees to provide direct feedback to their leaders without fear of potential repercussions. The survey consisted of 30 questions to measure the progress of their team leaders against the four key principles of leadership. Another tool she uses are evaluations of each leader’s most expressed positive characteristics. Employees select no more than 7 leaders’ characteristic from a list. This gives leaders concrete suggestions about the areas they need to improve and make as their actual goals. Employees also have the option to give unstructured specific proposals for improvements in the survey. Following these evaluations, every leader received an analysis of the results and a summary of specific feedback given by their employees. Based on these inputs, every leader set three areas for themselves to improve as individual goals for the next 12 months.

“Between 2020 and 2021 all leaders improved their scores - every last one of them,” said Brdar.

“Some were outstanding. We had a person whose scores were below average when it came to collaborating with the team. They were motivated to build relationships with the team and worked hard to achieve excellent improvement. This is a very positive experience and it shows us we’re doing something right.”

While the total average score improved by 7%, which is a success in itself, a really dramatic improvement was recorded in leaders who received scores under 70%. In just a year, they achieved an improvement of 14% on average, all scoring 70% or higher, which proves that the leadership trainings were very effective, and these evaluations additionally motivated them and focused their efforts.

Managing change

To improve its service, the Banking Operations team also focused on change. While NKBM already has initiatives to collect proposals and support ideas in place, employee ideas sometimes take too long to implement. To streamline this process, Aleksandra implemented an All-Stars Project Initiative for gathering ideas.

“Anyone who comes up with an idea is considered a star because they dare to share what can be improved,” she said. “People were not used to being asked about their ideas on how to implement change. However, if you work on a certain task or process, you know exactly what you need. You shouldn’t leave the decision to someone else. By being involved in the change, you feel part of it and you are motivated to see it through.”

The first year they launched the project in 2019, the team effortlessly came up with 10 ideas, all of which were then realized in practice within the same year. Aleksandra knew she had to provide resources, IT support and leadership buy-in to ensure ideas were getting realized which, in turn, motivated other members of the team to come up with new and even better ideas in the next round of the project, driving a process of continuous improvement, not just for Banking Operations processes, but across different departments in the bank. Now in its fourth year, the project still generates amazing ideas as new “stars” are discovered among the employees.

Flattening the hierarchy

Several other initiatives have been used to foster the culture of openness and transparency. For example, employees participate in monthly coffee meetings to discuss suggestions and share tips and tricks for everyday work. Interesting topics, such as e-mail management approaches drive engagement and create a platform for everyone to implement best practices in their work.

There are also town-hall meetings where employees get clear information from the management board members and can ask direct questions. The culture of openness has been cultivated over the last years and has thrived exactly because of support from senior management and leaders.

“Relationships have become much less formal and leaders and managers are more accessible,” explained Brdar. “As an employee in the old days of NKBM, you used to have to schedule a meeting to speak with someone at my level. Now people just talk to me in the hall. Of course, there are still hierarchies to support decision-making but the level of accessibility is something completely different from five years ago.”

Delivering better service

These efforts had a clear benefit for Nova KBM. The Banking Operations team carried out annual surveys that were distributed to their internal customers. The surveys were carried out twice a year in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and looked at how teams supported by Banking Operations experienced general satisfaction, cooperation, and professional competence.

The results were stunning. Scores that were under 4 on a 5-point scale in the initial survey in 2019, increased over 4 by the end of the first year. The results have shown that the Banking Operations team is much more prepared to collaborate with others, to provide feedback and is open to finding solutions. The team analyses the results every time and looks at areas where their scores are lower than expected to identify areas for improvement.

Between 2019 and 2021, the whole team worked very hard and was able to improve the average satisfaction score by 9.7 percent from 3.72 to 4.08. This culture of focus on the measurable benefits of culture change and training allows Nova KBM to realign their efforts when it comes to improving internal services.

“The results of the survey is an annual goal for department heads,” noted Brdar. “In 2020, the goal was to increase the satisfaction levels of our internal customers and in 2021 the goal was to maintain them. You cannot get perfect fives across the board, so we’re focusing on small improvements and maintaining our levels above 4.0.”

Looking to the future

The team will continue its internal activities, such as the All-Stars Project, informal morning coffee meetings, breakfasts and scrum and brainstorming meetings. All leaders want to continue learning and improving their management skills.

This time around, however, topics will be focused on how to manage and lead during a more peaceful period in the organization. After several years of active project management, acquisitions, mergers and COVID-19, the team needs to shift their attention to tools and techniques that will help them maintain their performance and keep improving.

“There was a positive response from my team, bringing them to a level where they actively work to continuously better themselves. Hansen Beck ’s ?individual approach encourages follow-up and motivates you to continue thinking about what you learned even after the training is complete. Today, my colleagues discover new ideas, find relevant articles, books and webcasts on their own and then share them among themselves. That is really nice.”

Conclusion

We know change is not easy. We know it is everywhere.

We also know it needs to start somewhere. If you need a hand, let us know!

Hansen Beck invites you to Embrace the Culture of Change

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