Team Effort

The National can only be truly customer driven when it liberates the spirit, creativity and talent of its people.

Renewing our culture means keeping the best of our past while embracing change - mixing new-found openness, innovation, diversity and flexibility with our traditional confidence and reliability.

This is a particular responsibility of the Group Executive Forum - comprising Executive General Managers (EGM) and Regional Chief Executive Officers - which is seeking to model the characteristics of a high performing team and, at the same time, create an environment that will engage staff, develop and unlock their potential, and ensure exciting career paths are in place to challenge and reward them.

Over the past year, the Group Executive Forum has met quarterly to focus on leadership development, both as individuals and as a collective. This work has found particular expression in the National Leadership Standard, which seeks to articulate the expectations of National leaders clearly.

Research conducted among more than 30,000 of our staff over the past year established the factors that contribute most to their satisfaction at work. They are:

	pay and benefits,
	corporate image and reputation,
	corporate direction, values and place in the community,
	communication and engagement by leaders at all levels,
	perceived internal and external equity of employee rewards and the relationship with performance, and
	a culture in which people feel free to speak up.

We are working to improve each of the factors nominated, with some evidence that our perception in the community is improving.

As well as listening to staff to learn more about what makes them tick in the workplace, we are also tapping in to their understanding of our customers more effectively.

Staff from across our organisation have this year participated in a process of refreshing the National's vision, values and direction. Their thinking was crystallised into a presentation made to a strategy review forum held in April this year, involving senior executives. The views from staff provided valuable new perspectives on the issues from the front-line.

This review and renewal process will continue.

Encouraging diversity

Innovation comes from tackling problems from a fresh perspective. Bringing together people from different cultures, and of different ages, experience and gender produces a more innovative culture. The National has insufficient diversity, particularly at senior management levels, and is making it a priority to change this. A culture that embraces and promotes diversity will produce an organisation that is more creative, empathetic and responsive to changes in the environment of our business.

A Diversity Guiding Coalition, chaired by the Chief Executive Officer, Frank Cicutto, and involving a cross-section of staff from all areas of our business, is developing strategies for a number of initiatives, such as mentoring programmes to foster greater diversity in employee groups across the National Group.

The Coalition will monitor and report on the National's achievement of diversity along a range of demographic variables. We have also initiated programmes to support employment opportunities for disabled and indigenous people.

Managing our talent

It is one thing to say people are your most valuable asset, and another to manage them as if they are. The National's Talent Review is designed to improve our understanding of the skills and capabilities within our ranks and our ability to foster development.

The Talent Review started with the executive team, including the Executive General Managers and the Regional Chief Executive Officers, in early 2000 and has since encompassed the most senior 1650 managers in the National.

Aimed at identifying performance and potential, the Talent Review includes a "360-degree" assessment, which gives people feedback from their peers, superiors and subordinates on their performance and areas for development.

Talent Review is one of the processes used to determine remuneration and reward for individual and team performance.

Recognising that leadership is fundamental to the National's future, we are focusing on leadership development at all levels. Tools and programmes are being developed to assist, including our "leader as coach" programme, mentoring programmes, online performance management, online learning, and career navigation.

The National continues to recognise and work with unions as representative organisations for many of our staff. During the year, successful pay negotiations were concluded with the IBOA and Unifi in Europe and Finsec in New Zealand. Discussions with the FSU in Australia are continuing.

Good service starts at home Providing the very best service to our customers means we first need to be able to provide excellent service to the colleagues who rely on us. National Shared Services recently launched an Internal Service Monitor to raise the level of service within the organisation. It provides business units with a consistent method for measuring the quality of service they provide, enabling them to achieve goals for service timeliness, knowledge, attitude and the overall satisfaction they provide to their internal customers. The Monitor asks the internal customers of each business unit to rate its performance. Consistently achieving top scores for internal customer service is Lending Services Queensland, which has as its internal customers bankers from both Personal Financial Services and Business Financial Services. Headed by Rod Adams, Lending Services Queensland is responsible for the processing, approval, settlement and drawing down of loans. As Rod says: "If there's a glitch or a hold-up with our internal customers, there's a significant and immediate effect on the end customer." Rod attributes the success of Lending Services Queensland to a programme the division started two years ago. The Breakthrough Service Performance programme trained staff to look at values such as having a positive attitude, being proactive, consistent, accurate, responsive and timely, showing care and courtesy, taking ownership of their work and honing their teamwork and communication skills. Given that the division regularly scores top marks from its internal customers, the programme has clearly had a real impact on staff. "Breakthrough Service has given our people a greater understanding of what drives really great customer service," Rod says. "People are more conscious of looking at the broader service requirements even if it is not their direct responsibility. We are a 'team of teams' and any breakdown, anywhere has the potential to impact on the end customer. "Talking to our stakeholders is also important. We develop new policies, processes and procedures in conjunction with our stakeholders, not in isolation. We don't design something that's just good for us, it also has to be good for our internal customers. What's good for Lending Services is good for the bankers and most important, it's going to improve the customer experience. "I feel very strongly that people drive service and service equals sales. If we provide really excellent service, you have happy staff in here, you have happy customers and you have more business."