Customer delight

Case studies

Close Brothers employee opinion survey

Close Brothers Group, an independent merchant bank, worked with ETS on an employee opinion survey. What set the survey apart was that it was run across all 40 of the Group’s companies, which span corporate finance, asset management, wealth management and lending services.

This was Close Brothers’ first all-group survey and the aim was simple: to listen to employees’ views. The first year of the survey identified areas for action and set a benchmark against which improvements will be measured in future surveys.

Running a group-wide survey is not simple, says Bob Golden, Chief Executive of Close Premium Finance, who is responsible for the survey:

The challenges of running a group-wide survey are enormous. People from corporate finance have different needs from people in a processing or call centre.

ETS designed a set of questions taking on-board views and ideas from key stakeholders across the Group, to ensure that the survey objectives would be met across all the different businesses. The questionnaire was designed to look at both Group wide issues and business specific ones.

ETS was chosen based on the recommendation of another financial services company. Bob Golden said of ETS:

I think the survey was run extremely well. My view of ETS is that they are energetic, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Certainly, the survey delivered everything they said it would.

Employees have appreciated the simple fact of having their views heard. For the Group, the survey has created a consistent picture of diverse opinions in the different businesses. It has also gathered views on common topics such as branding and public awareness.

The survey results pointed to improvements that could be made in areas including communication. Acting on this knowledge, the Group aims to improve scores that should be reflected in the next survey.