All Articles Leadership How BBVA Compass shares its employee-value proposition

How BBVA Compass shares its employee-value proposition

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Leadership

This guest post is by Miri Zena McDonald, a strategic communications consultant. Miri tweets at @miri_orgchange. She attended the Marcus Evans 6th Annual Employee Engagement and Internal Communications Conference in Orlando, Fla.

BBVA Compass is working to promote employee engagement by demonstrating its value and strength as a company to its employees, says William Trout, director of internal communications for the bank. In his presentation, he shared how the company is reinforcing the message that the bank is “a good place to bank, a good place to work.”

BBVA Compass’s strategy to communicate its employee-value proposition, or EVP, focuses on four key areas:

  • Determine what information employees want to hear and the best way to deliver those messages.
  • Deploy managers and other leaders as advocates to tell the brand story internally.
  • Connect virtual and physical content to bring simple and actionable communications to employees.
  • Measure effectiveness of communications channels and adapt strategy and tactics accordingly.

To determine what messages most interest employees and measure the effectiveness of communications and the channels they use, the company administers a quarterly survey of workers. The results of this survey become part of a dashboard that helps the leadership team monitor progress towards communications and engagement goals. The dashboard tracks:

  • Message recall: Do employees remember specific messages?
  • Message credibility: Do employees believe the messages?
  • Line of sight: Does your manager use language that helps you connect your role back to the company’s business strategy?
  • Direct and senior management communications: How satisfied is the employee with communications from leaders?
  • Employee connection: How connected does the employee feel with the bank?
  • Employees as bank champions: Does the employee sees themselves as a champion of the bank?

BBVA Compass ensures that employees have regular access to the CEO through two main venues, one casual and one structured. The small, casual gatherings provide 10 to 12 employees the opportunity to sit down with the CEO. The company also hosts larger, more structured meetings where employees can pose questions to the CEO. Both events are recorded for people who can’t attend.

BBVA also communicates with workers via an organized network of workers. This group meets every other month to help support formal communications efforts and learn about special projects and successes across the organization.