BUILDING A UNIQUE CULTURE FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Culture measurement and development

During 2010 significant emphasis was placed on the development of Nedbank Group's organisational culture as a means of enabling the achievement of the group's other cultural sustainability objectives.

The Organisational Development Unit worked with a culture and values workstream, resulting in a number of key initiatives, most notably research conducted into the group's middle management employees and their development requirements.

Nedbank Group continues to measure staff morale and corporate culture on an annual basis, using various diagnostic methods. In addition to the surveys, insight-driven reporting was introduced, thereby enabling focused interventions.

The group's employee surveys scores showed slight declines, but remained in high-performance ranges despite significant macro- and microenvironmental changes.

The three main culture-based surveys conducted in 2010 were:

The Barrett Survey
This measures employee perceptions and the 'degree of alignment' of personal values, current corporate cultural values and desired corporate cultural values within the organisation.

For the first time the 2010 Barrett Survey results registered 'commitment' as a value present in the group's current culture. This result is key, as it reinforces the internal cohesion of the organisation, which is supportive of its aspiration of 'becoming great at collaboration'.

The group's entropy level for 2010 was 13% with six value matches between current culture and desired culture recorded. These results are indicative of an aligned, high-performing culture.

Entropy is the amount of energy in the group that is consumed in unproductive work. It is a measure of conflit, friction and chaos that exists within the organisation.

Hewitt Engagement Survey and Nedbank Staff Survey
An unprecedented 19 878 Nedbank Group employees participated in the 2010 Nedbank Staff Survey (NSS) in 2010. The overall engagement score for Nedbank Group registered a small decline year-on-year, primarily due to the challenging local and global economic circumstances. The group's performance remains within the Hewitt Engagement Survey's high-performance range of between 65% and 100%.

The overall NSS score also experienced a small decline from 78,9% in 2009 to 75,9% in 2010, but this remains an acceptable score by international standards and in the current economic climate.

Old Mutual Engagement Survey
Engagement is the extent to which employees commit to something or someone in their organisation, and a measure of how hard they work and how long they stay as a result of that commitment. T he results of the 2010 Old Mutual Engagement Survey indicated that the engagement levels within Nedbank Group remained stable in relation to those of 2009.

Middle-management research

During 2010 Nedbank Group middle managers were identified as a specific grouping that requires additional development in order to ensure overall alignment with the group's strategy. The findings of the detailed research and qualitative focus groups conducted in this regard led to a decision to cascade the group's Leading for Deep Green programme to this level of management.

Leading for Deep Green is a programme that was launched in 2006 to senior management with the core aim of entrenching a valuesbased leadership culture across the group through personal insights and team effectiveness. A manager's newsletter was launched to share HR information directly with managers.

Employee Wellbeing

The Nedbank Employee Wellbeing Programme focuses on all aspects of individual wellbeing within the Nedbank Group and offers a supportive structure to contribute to the health and wellbeing of staff in the workplace, thereby improving business effectiveness and staff morale.

The programme is available to all permanent and temporary staffmembers and their household family members. The wellbeing programme's service provider, ICAS, offers confidential counselling telephonically or face-to-face through trained professionals located across South Africa.

The programme was well-utilised by Nedbank Group staffmembers during 2010, with 21,5% of group employees making use of the various services available to them. This is notably higher than the industry standard of 10,3% and is due to effective awareness campaigns that were run to launch the revised service offering.

The top reasons for employees making use of the programme were relationship issues and work or personal stress.

Nedbank Group conducted its first employee wellbeing survey in 2010. This behavioural risk assessment, Pulse Audit, offers a snapshot of the emotional and behavioural health of a sample of group employees. All employees who responded to the survey received a personal analysis of their responses, outlining the extent of their behaviour and emotional risk exposure and providing recommendations about ways to address higher-risk areas.

The employee wellbeing services and initiatives offered by Nedbank Group include (but are not limited to) the following:

Executive health programme – a comprehensive wellbeing assessment, with a combination of medical and behavioural, risk management and personal optimisation modules.
Trauma debriefing – for employees who have suffered a traumatic incident, such as a robbery. Certain cases are transferred to the Employee Wellbeing Programme for longer-term care where required.
Employee Wellbeing Programme – confidential, professional consultation services for all employees.
Holsboer Benefit Fund – offering support to Nedbank Group employees who suffer extreme financial hardship as a result of unexpected medical costs. In 2010 medical costs to the value of over R1,7 million were covered by the fund.
Gerry Muller Benefit Fund – assisting Nedbank pensioners to overcome financial hardship caused by medical aid shortfalls.
Holsboer Vacations Fund – offering employees and pensioners affordable holidays at a variety of resorts countrywide.

Nedbank Group also provides childcare facilities at three of its headoffice buildings in Gauteng. By addressing the needs of working mothers and fathers, the group retains key staffmembers, boosts productivity and reduces absenteeism. Together these facilities accommodated 238 children in 2010.



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