Background:

In 2022, the Bank had a number of current and planned business change and transformation programmes requiring significant additional headcount across its PMO, Change Delivery and Programme teams.

Challenge:

The Bank had found sourcing individuals with the right skills and attributes to deliver change in a complex environment in the timescales required challenging, due to competing salaries from the private sector.

Additionally, the Bank recognises it is not necessarily the first choice for Project and Programme talent and to attract the talent required a proactive engagement to change market perceptions of a public body with outdated technology, traditional and
stuffy.

The Bank and, in particular the Projects & Programme Division, had made significant strides in increasing the diversity of its team and creating an inclusive culture and wanted to promote this and attract a wider diverse work force, who to outsiders, would typically not regard the Bank to have a diverse or inclusive culture.

In addition, the Bank’s Projects & Programme Division recognised that ongoing demand for its services internally together with natural attrition would require talent pools to maintain candidate conversations and, aid future hiring campaigns.

Solution:

A kick off meeting at the Bank’s Threadneedle site with the P&P management team allowed us together to build compelling and attractive reasons why individuals might consider the Bank as an employer of choice (“Employer Value Proposition”), it’s D&I priorities and detailed vacancy briefs.

Short explainer interviews with existing Bank staff were recorded over MS Teams and shared on social media and in candidate briefing packs, highlighting what they enjoyed about working at the Bank, their role and culture. 

These videos served to inform potential candidates reasons to consider working for the Bank (e.g delivering complex change and critical national infrastructure, agile & flexible working, learning and development opportunities, making a positive contribution) and bust market preconceptions (outdated tech; bureaucratic; career limiting).

Outbound and inbound recruitment strategies were deployed including direct approaches, market mapping, advertising, social media campaigns and, sharing Bank content, news and blogs with groups promoting diversity and inclusion.

Results:

Twelve diverse hires were made across the PMO, Project and Programme teams, attracting talent who hadn’t previously considered the Bank, saving the Bank valuable time and productivity with shortened time to hire and significantly high CV to interview ratios.

Successful hires included:

• Portfolio Managers
• PMO Manager
• PMO Analysts
• Senior Change Delivery Managers
• Senior Programme Managers

Links:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/

For more information, or to speak to a Consultant in confidence, email hello@inspirepeople.net or call +44 (0)20 7871 8550.