Barclaycard held a conference for 250 of its senior managers to help the
company form its new corporate direction and identify the best way to
communicate this to all staff.
Phil Rowe, Barclaycard’s head of internal communications, said the decision
was taken to involve staff in the creation of a new ‘vision’ following a number
of changes, including the takeover of the Providian bank and its 500 staff
earlier this month.
Barclaycard has also just launched in Italy and recently started Barclaycard
Direct, a remote business selling investments, insurance and mortgages.
The programme, organised by Eventworks, began with the executive level team
working with board members of Barclaycard’s different businesses, including HR,
to identify a vision statement, which was "We will become the most admired
card business in the world."
The conference was held to allow the next layer of leaders and senior
managers from across the business to have an input into the process.
"Over two days we asked, if this is our long term vision what do you
think we need to do in order to achieve it?," said Rowe.
The delegates agreed that Barclaycard’s core stakeholder groups were
customers, colleagues, company and community and then through discussion
identified how these were to be involved to help drive the overall vision.
Finally, the managers suggested ways of ensuring all their employees are
involved, including a roadshow, permanent areas promoting the corporate vision,
and via the intranet.
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Rowe said traditional internal communication methods would also be used,
such as team briefings and quarterly leadership team meetings. "We must
involve people as much as possible, we want to limit the amount of central push
to put this process in the hands of our people so they can bring it to
life," he explained.
