About the campaign

The Covid pandemic had a profound impact on the 18,000 customer representatives who work for international financial services company Provident, who were dealing with customers in their homes. In order to boost staff retention in the 22/23 financial year, it realised it needed a change to its employer value proposition.

Research needed to clarify the role and motivations of customer representatives in the post-pandemic world, identify what motivated them, key areas for leadership to focus on and recommend specific courses of action to take. It decided to bring groups together face-to-face, with focus groups taking place across five countries. Blackbridge identified and trained facilitators from within the company.

The full outputs were then collated into a report, featuring key areas including attraction, development, recognition and communication. From this a cross-functional team was able to identify seven solution areas: revising talent attraction to reflect the reality of the role; consistent development pathways in different countries; revised management training; an annual customer representative conference; new recognition initiatives; different communication of incentives and upgraded technology. Stuart Doran, HR director at Provident, says the insight is “already reaping rewards – both in terms of commercially, but more critically, in the engagement of this critical population”.