The BSB has today, Tuesday 9 March, published the 2020 BSB Employee Survey aggregate results on the BSB website.
Findings from the 2020 Banking Standards Board Employee Survey
- More than 73,000 banking sector employees across the UK responded to the BSB Survey in 2020 – the fifth such annual assessment exercise.
- The largest cumulative improvement in scores over the 2016 to 2020 period has been on questions relating to leadership and responding to employee feedback.
- In 2020, and averaged across all firms, scores improved after a sideways trend in the previous two years. The largest gains came on responding to employee feedback, leadership, and health and wellbeing.
- 88% of employees said that they felt accepted and able to be themselves at work.
- This proportion was similar among both women and men.
- 91% of employees identifying as White British felt both accepted and able to be themselves at work. Among other employees this proportion was lower, falling to 78% among those identifying as Black/Black British.
- We asked respondents whether they had a lasting physical or mental condition or illness that affected their daily activities.Among those who did not, 90% felt both accepted and able to be themselves at work; among those who did, only 77%.
- When asked to describe their firm, employees were much more likely in 2020 to use words such as ‘supportive’ and ‘caring’.
Context
- Given the challenges posed to everyone by Covid-19, but also the value to firms of being able to learn about how their organisation was responding in an unusual environment, the 2020 BSB Survey was run in September. This was later than the usual May window, meaning that changes in results in 2020 relate to a period of 16 rather than 12 months.
- The Survey asked 36 core scored questions (a consistent question set relating to the nine characteristics of the BSB Assessment Framework). It also, in 2020, asked additional questions relating to diversity and inclusion, the responsible use of data, and perceptions of how firms had responded during the period from March 2020 following government guidance to work where possible from home.
- 31 firms took part in the BSB Survey in 2020 and there were a total of 73,212 respondents.
Dame Susan Rice, Chair of the BSB, said:
‘2020 was a far from usual year. But what organisations learned during 2020 – and especially about communicating with, responding to and supporting their employees – can and should be of lasting value. This latest set of results from the BSB assessment shows where progress has been made and where more is needed. All of the firms that participated in the Survey have made a clear commitment to learning both from their own experience and from each other, in order to raise standards of behaviour and competence across the banking sector. I am very pleased, therefore, that we will shortly be expanding our membership scope to include not only banking but financial services more broadly. This will enable us to work individually and collectively with an even wider range of firms keen to understand and manage their organisational cultures ever more effectively, to the benefit of customers and clients across this important sector.’
Alison Cottrell, Chief Executive of the BSB, said:
‘2020 saw an overall improvement in the BSB assessment results. As they responded to the pandemic, many banks and building societies went further in supporting, trusting and listening to their employees. The improvement is welcome. The challenge will be to maintain and build on it as (as we all hope) the crisis eases and a degree of flexibility returns to workplace arrangements. Under any approach, fairness, respect and consistency will be key, and across all parts of the workforce. After a year in which diversity, inclusion and equality were much talked about, our findings – especially with regard to ethnicity and disability – offer yet one more reminder of the need for action.’
Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, said:
‘The pandemic has shown the value of engaged leadership and the difference a constructive culture can make. That is clearly demonstrated in the results of the BSB’s most recent employee survey. It is excellent to see positive progress through the challenges of Covid. These results, however, illustrate that a gap remains on diversity and inclusion. The sector has – like the Bank of England itself – further work to do. The BSB makes an important contribution by allowing organisations to learn from each other. Therefore, I’m pleased that firms across the finance sector more broadly will soon be able to access these benefits.’
How scores have changed since 2016
- On average across all firms, scores tended to improve between 2016 and 2017; trend sideways in 2018 and 2019; and improve again in 2020. This picture remains the same after adjusting for changes in the composition of firms involved in the Survey during that period.
- The greatest cumulative improvements since 2016 came on questions relating to leadership and responding to staff feedback.
- 77% of respondents believed in 2020 that senior leaders meant what they said, compared with 62% in 2016.
- 72% said that leaders took responsibility, especially if things went wrong, from 58% in 2016.
- 73% said that their organisation responded effectively to staff feedback, from 57% in 2016.
How scores changed in 2020
- Scores (averaged across all firms) rose in 2020 on each question in the BSB Survey.
- In a year dominated by Covid-19 and changing workplace arrangements and different ways of communicating using different technology, the largest improvements related to feedback, leadership and wellbeing.
- 73% of respondents said that their firm responded effectively to staff feedback, compared with 63% in 2019.
- 72% said that leaders at their firm took responsibility, from 66% in 2019.
- 20% said that working at the firm had a negative impact on health and wellbeing, from 25% in 2019.
Large firms, smaller banks and smaller building societies
- As well as the overall picture, we were able in 2020 to separate firms into three groups: large complex (systemically important) firms; smaller (non-systemically important) banks; and smaller (non-systemically important) building societies.
- Within each group there was a wide range of scores.
- By group, Survey scores were slightly higher on average in 2020 for larger firms than for smaller banks or building societies, in particular on competence, respect and responsiveness.
- Employees at smaller building societies tended on average to be more positive than those in other groups on questions relating to customer focus.
Business areas
- Employees who worked in Retail Banking (and in particular, in the Retail Branch area) tended to be more positive across the core 36 questions than those who worked in other business areas. Those working in IT tended to be least positive.
- The improvement in scores in 2020 was evident across all main business areas.
- Over the period since 2016, Retail Banking has seen the largest cumulative improvement (compared with Commercial Banking, Investment Banking and Functions).
The period post-lockdown
- Prior to March 2020, two thirds of employees worked primarily onsite in the office or branch. Following government guidance to work from home, this fell to just under a quarter; 72% of respondents worked primarily from home during lockdown. Those who needed to work onsite were primarily in customer-facing roles and in Retail Banking.
- Asked about the post-March period, more than 90% of employees said that they had been treated fairly, that their line manager had supported them and that they were proud of how their organisation had helped its customers (or clients or members) during the crisis. 90% felt that senior leaders at their firm had managed the impact of the crisis on the business well, and 87% that their organisation had appropriately supported their health and wellbeing.
- Employees who worked primarily from home during lockdown were more positive on each of these questions than those required to work onsite.
- Employees working in Commercial Banking or Functions were, on average, more positive on these questions than those in Investment Banking or Retail Banking.
How employees describe their firms
- When asked for three words to describe their firm, the words most commonly used by employees were (or were similar to) ‘customer’, ‘ethical’, ‘supportive’, ‘fair’ and ‘caring’.
- ‘Supportive’ and ‘caring’ entered the top five most frequently used words in 2020, having not been among the top 10 in any of the previous four years.
- The change to a more ‘supportive’ word cloud was particularly marked among larger firms. Following on from the previous finding, this may reflect in part the tendency of smaller firms to have a higher proportion of their employees (a) in customer-facing retail roles, and therefore (b) working onsite during the pandemic rather than working from home.
- The most frequently used words differed by business area.
- In Retail, they were ‘customer’, ‘fair’, ‘supportive’.
- In Commercial Banking, they were ‘supportive’, ‘ethical’, ‘customer’.
- In Investment Banking, they were ‘bureaucratic’, ‘client’, ‘global’.
- In Functions, they were ‘customer’, ‘ethical’, ‘supportive’.
Diversity and Inclusion
Gender
- As in previous years, women tended on average to answer most Survey questions more positively than men. The main exception related to the question about whether people turn a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour.
- We also asked some additional questions in 2020 relating to inclusion; in particular, whether people felt accepted by their colleagues at work, and whether they felt they could be themselves at work.
- 88% of employees said that they felt both accepted and able to be themselves at work. This proportion was similar across both women and men.
Ethnicity
- Respondents who identified as White British answered most questions more positively than those who identified as any other ethnicity. As in 2019, the largest differences came on questions relating to ethical behaviour and speaking up, where Asian / Asian British and Black / Black British respondents answered significantly more negatively. As an example:
- 80% of respondents said that they would feel comfortable challenging a decision made by their manager. This rose to 84% of those identifying as White British, but fell to 74% among Asian/ Asian British respondents, and 71% of Black / Black British respondents.
- 13% of respondents said that it was difficult to progress in their firm without flexing their ethical standards. This proportion ranged, however, from 9% of those identifying as White British, to 23% of those identifying as Black/Black British or Asian / Asian British.
- In our additional inclusion questions, 91% of employees who identified as White British felt both accepted and able to be themselves at work.This fell to 84% among respondents identifying as being of mixed or multiple ethnicity, 83% among those identifying as Asian/ Asian British, and 78% among Black/ Black British respondents.
Disability
- We collected for the first time in 2020 demographic data on disability (defined here as someone saying that they had a long-term health condition or illness that affected their daily activity). Employees with a disability answered our 36 core Survey questions more negatively than those without, and our regression analysis indicates that this factor had a greater explanatory effect in several questions than any other demographic collected. The two questions relating to personal resilience demonstrate this disparity.
- 39% of employees said that they often felt under excessive pressure to perform at work, and 20% that working at their organisation had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. Both of these percentages improved in 2020, having shown little change in previous years.
- Among employees with a disability, however, 54% said that they often felt under excessive pressure at work, and 39% that work had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing.
- Among those without a disability, 36% often felt under excessive pressure, and 15% that work had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing.
- 90% of employees who said that they did not have a disability felt both accepted and able to be themselves at work. Among those who said that they did have a disability, this fell to 77%.
Contact:
Laura Conaghan
Head of Media Relations, BSB
T: 020 3781 9696
Miriam Abilama
Head of Content, BSB
T: 020 3781 9696