An employer brand to bank on
Hodge is a lending and savings bank, headquartered in Cardiff. It’s been serving its customers in the UK since 1987. The brand started its life as Julian Hodge Bank and has evolved and grown over 50 years, resulting in the need for a rebrand and renaming in 2021.
We worked with Hodge to develop a comprehensive activation programme to bring the brand to life internally for its 350 people. Our brief was to create a purpose-driven culture. One where every individual in the organisation takes ownership of the purpose and values, and understands their role in delivering them through their actions and behaviours.
Sector
Banking
Services
Purpose definition
Values-driven behaviours
Employer branding
EVP definition
Team brand training
Internal brand activation
Digital & print resources
Video & short film
Brand narrative & voice guidelines
Creative concepting & design
Internal launch campaign
We started with focus groups, consulting extensively to build a clear picture of what brand Hodge means to the people that work there. It was an enlightening process, where we learnt the motivations of the team; the things that get them up in the morning; that make Hodge an employer they’re proud to work for. From this insight, we developed the Hodge EVP (Employee Value Proposition), which defines Hodge as a place to work, and gives clarity to the employer brand, both externally and internally.
We used the insight we gained to refine the brand purpose, making sure it resinated internally for all the right reasons. We also created colleagues personas and a robust behaviours framework, to give relevance to the brand values and lay a foundation for the development of a purposeful and values-driven culture.
A refined purpose and values to be proud of
To launch the brand internally, and make sure all colleagues understood their role in delivering it, we designed a launch campaign, introducing a friendly secondary typeface to soften the tone of internal communications.
We delivered a programme of internal workshops and developed a range of materials, including how-to-guides for managers and brand champions, language guidelines and an onboarding box for all colleagues. This was topped off with a series of short films, where we teased the launch, introduced the purpose, and told the stories of customers and colleagues to bring everything to life.
The work we did was incredibly well received. In an annual employee engagement survey, there was a significant shift in the ‘shared purpose’ category against other FSCB firms. Words relating to the company values were cited frequently in answers, and there were positivity changes of up to 17% in employee answers relating to the meaningfulness of the company’s purpose and values.
“We thoroughly enjoyed working with you on the brand and purpose activation and EVP… couldn’t have done it without you”