OPINION: Communicating and rebuilding trust in the finance industry
A closer look at the task that's currently facing communicators in the financial sector as they try to repair the damage that's been done to levels of trust between employees and leaders.
Colette Dorward, partner, Comma.
We're now two years on from the start of the financial crash – although for most of us, we weren't really aware there was anything very significant going on until October 2008.
This was the date when localized problems suddenly seemed to snowball into an almighty event, the crash of Lehman Brothers, which in turn sent the stock market into tailspin. Genuine panic broke out in the City of London as rumors grew that the entire financial system might be on the brink of collapse.
Today, everyone is talking about recovery. There may be hard times ahead for some but we are no longer fearing global meltdown.
Impact on the communication industry
A reported 14% of communicators have lost their jobs – voluntarily or otherwise – in the last 12 months according to trade body IABC. But that means 86% are still in role, riding the waves of recession and dealing with the communication fall-out of changing times.
This article is about one very specific subset of those communicators. Those working in the sector that many are blaming for the crisis, the banks whose wrong decisions and irresponsible behavior are seen as playing a key role in inflating the debt bubble that had us all living happily beyond our means for too long.
As we brace ourselves for a new era of high unemployment and cut down public services these are the companies that feel their bad press isn't going to go away any time soon.
For the average bank employee – certainly the ones that you and I deal with on an everyday basis for personal and business needs – a lot has changed. They've witnessed an extraordinary collision of circumstances affecting the way they look at their employer and the reason they come to work every day.
I bet that every staff survey carried out in a bank recently shows that confidence in leaders has plummeted.
Some have had the shocking experience of waking up to find their rock-solid institution needed to be bailed out by the taxpayer. They see the hand of government (and, in the UK, a government that pretty much everyone feels has long passed its "sell-by" date) reaching into their organization to influence the way it works.
They've felt the anger of customers in branches joking about "who owns you now". Some have seen their visionary and inspiring leaders publicly humiliated.
Now, because the banks need to get back into profit, their employees are bracing themselves for massive and successive rounds of change programs and job cuts. And even here, banks are not being allowed to get on with it on their own. Suddenly everyone has a view about how they ought to be run and what they should be charging their customers for their services. It's hard to keep control of the messaging when there are daily media reports – like that published by business consultancy Bain during this summer's interims reporting season for UK banks – saying retail banks need to face up to the likelihood of having to close a third of their branches before they can restore profitability. Let alone the tabloids' refusal to let up on bankers' bonuses, the scandal of low rates for savers, and banks' apparent reluctance to do their bit to help businesses and homeowners ride the storms of recession.
No wonder trust in leadership has eroded. I'm willing to bet that every staff survey carried out in a bank over the last few months shows that people's confidence in those at the helm has plummeted.
So how are banks meeting this challenge?
Rebuilding public trust is high up the banks' list of priorities as they transition out of crisis mode and into the long, slow grind of reconstruction. The first fruits of the thinking that is going into how to do this are appearing in the high street – new advisory services and products to help those hit by recession, subtle shifts of brand positioning, and full page ads in the national press in the form of reassuring letters to "our customers". No doubt these are all helping. But the function that is really coming into its own is that of internal communication.
Why? Because the best way to tackle the problem is to start at home.
Political consulting guru, the all-time "father of political pollsters", Stanley Greenberg was quoted in a recent McKinsey Quarterly (June 09) as saying, "This is uniquely a time when the answer to the reputation problem lies less in what you are doing externally and more in what kind of company you run."
Repairing trust needs to start with rebuilding employee confidence. Something needs to be done to restore their sense of pride in who they work for and what banks are for.
Here are three specific topics that are on their communicators' "to do" list – or should be.
1 “We’re sorry”
In fact, if this hasn't already been said it's probably too late. Communicators have no role in what can safely be left to posterity – or re-awakening shareholders – to decide who was really responsible for what happened.
But anyone whose employer brand has dropped through the floor – and particularly those who've had to fend off ill-considered remarks by members of the general public in the course of their daily job – deserves some kind of explanation from those in charge and direct recognition of what the innocent many have had to live through, through no fault of their own.
Further, communicators should not allow leaders to sidestep the hairy issue of how employees' personal finances have been impacted – particularly when, typically, they've been encouraged so strongly in the past to invest their savings in their employer’s shares. It's a big issue. It needs to be talked about, openly. Ignored it will keep the trust barometer bumping along the bottom of the scale.
2. “We have a plan – but it’s going to take time”
The financial services sector is full of organizations that are used to being successful. Risk management is something they thought they were good at. Most employees, outside the trading floors and the esoteric ranks of the corporate financiers, chose to work there because they thought their employer was stable and respectable. And while they had started to realize that "moving with the times" meant grappling with the internet and fending off incomers, like Virgin, Tesco and M&S with threateningly comprehensive distribution networks or sexy brands, they weren't expecting to have to deal with the chasm in trust that has opened up.
Suddenly the banks need to find a new tune. They need to explain how they're going to do things differently. And they need to explain how they're going to swing back into growth and profit when they're still dealing with a largely unaltered and, for the most part, conservative customer base that's trying to deal with the impact of recession on their personal finances.
Where, staff are thinking, is this performance magic going to come from? If our customers have less disposable income and the general public trusts us less, surely that means retrenchment. And retrenchment means job cuts.
The communicator's challenge, as always, is how best to present the organization's recovery plan such that it inspires confidence. Does this look like a kneejerk reaction or a steady hand on the tiller? Are we helping people understand how much or how little change is actually needed, when, why, where and how, so that they can see what they need to do? Are we using the opportunity to lengthen people's perspective, to help them move out of "reacting to a crisis" and into rebuilding the business for the long term?
3. A clear voice from the top
The aftermath of the crisis has opened a window of opportunity to re-establish a clear and commonsense approach to leadership communication. Employees are actively seeking the voice of leadership – to provide reassurance and a clear vision of the way forward. Leaders, for their part, shocked by the scale and speed of change in the world around them, are keen to establish their credentials as the people who have the vision to take their organization forward into a new future.
Communicators need to help leaders understand that the complex process of organizational communication can be broken down into three simple components: the formal communication process, the prevailing management style, and the influence of leadership. You may be proud of the efficiency and creativity of your information distribution channels but if the leadership has lost credibility in the eyes of the people, the big messages about direction and strategy are unlikely to catch their attention or have much influence on the way people think and feel about their work.
Most leaders are, of course, fully aware of this. For many, it's one of the critical attractions of the leadership role – the ability to influence culture. Leaders trying to rebuild a damaged reputation have an even greater opportunity than in "normal" times. The expectations placed on them are greater. Everyone is looking for a savior and there will be more willingness to contemplate real change if a clear rationale is given for why the change plan will lead to recovery.
To win hearts and minds, leaders need to work with the grain of the culture of their organization. If they haven't grown up in it, they need to take the trouble to get to know how things really work on the ground and be able to access feedback channels which keep their senses alert to the reactions and issues that are rumbling around the business.
As a result of being tuned in, they'll know how to modulate the language, tone and style of their communication. They know what they say and do will get magnified and scrutinized at every turn and they should be using this to their – and their organization's - advantage.
Even points of detail – like the vocabulary they use to describe change – need to pass through their cultural filter. They need to hold themselves, their teams and their communication specialists to account to make sure they get this right and are presenting a joined-up, confident story about their plan to fix things.
All leaders can profit from taking care to challenge their own assumptions by making sure they have robust means in place – regular focus groups, employee panels, or cultural mapping exercises – to keep their finger on the pulse, unfiltered by management hierarchies which typically distort front-line reality to senior decision-makers in an effort to be seen to be winning at their job.
Further, closing the virtuous cycle of employee feedback can actively help leaders focus their teams on areas of greatest need, and direct their own communication effort to the point of greatest impact.
Back to basics
Just as recessions remind us of the need to return to common sense spending, so communicators need to cut through confusion and complexity and help their organizations rebuild trust. They can achieve this by by doing three simple things:
- Acknowledging the situation and how people are feeling.
- Spelling out the forward plan in straightforward, unambiguous terms.
- Making sure the voice of top leadership can be heard loud and clear across the whole organization – a voice that inspires confidence and a belief that, now, the right decisions are being made for the right reasons.
Have your say
Do you work for a financial organization? How have you communicated your tough messages and how are you helping to rebuild the damage that's been done?
Share your thoughts on the topic with us below.
Recommended resources:
Melcrum report: Viral communication in the workplace
How Deloitte's video competition engages internal and external audiences
ONLINE LIBRARY All change communication articles