Case study
Royal Bank of Scotland: Branch Manager
The challenge
The Royal Bank of Scotland's busy managers and team
leaders balance the daily demands of customers and staff with their
daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly routines. Motivated by numerous
performance measures to lead the best branch in their area or across
the network, training is not always top of their 'to do' list. The
challenge, then, was to:
- Make training relevant and useful to Branch Managers in achieving
their objectives
- Make it easy for them to access the training they need
- Keep them engaged in the learning process
The Branch Manager programme was envisaged by The Royal Bank of
Scotland to be a key element in their training and development programme
for new and existing Branch Managers. It was also to be a key enabler
of the current Retail Network Restructure, which involves migrating
existing Customer Service Managers to the new role of Branch Manager.
The solution
Epic's response to the brief was 40 hours of new learning content,
based around four core areas: induction, basic procedures and systems,
people management / interpersonal skills and 'achieving excellence'.
The Rules of the Game module provides detailed direction
on managing the sales process, customer service, staff performance,
resources and operational risk.
Managing People includes interactive video-based scenarios
that provide the opportunity for managers to assess their own behaviour
within realistic situations and to see how to move towards adopting
best practice.
Raising Performance provides a tool for the Branch
Manager to analyse their branch's performance and their own performance,
so that they can develop a prioritised action plan for their branch
and a prioritised training plan for themselves.
Achieving Excellence focuses on detailed control mechanisms,
financial management and team management issues such as recruitment,
induction and succession planning.
Content is clearly structured and highly interactive. The training
makes extensive use of practical examples, case studies and work-based
scenarios, and all video clips and photographs depict a Royal Bank
of Scotland environment.
The visual design presents a high quality, professional image that
does not detract from the learning, all aspects of which can be
quickly accessed via the main menu page and flat menu structure.
Each module interface follows the same visual design, but has been
adapted to suit the content and structure.
Assessments are used for key modules. Pre-tests give the user the
chance to either prove existing competence in that subject or to
identify the areas they need to focus on. Where formal assessment
is not appropriate, as in Achieving Excellence, there are
self-check questions for the user.
Outcomes
Alison Yeoman, Learning Consultant at The Royal Bank of Scotland,
said, 'Epic, a longstanding supplier, was a natural choice to provide
the high quality of training we require... We have already invested
heavily in the provision of e-learning across the retail branch
network and have reaped the benefits in terms of immediate access
to training and providing flexibility for managers.'
The Branch Manager programme takes its place with over 120 hours
of online learning which Epic has created for The Royal Bank of
Scotland over the last year. Content can be quickly updated, while
The Royal Bank of Scotland's learning management system makes it
easy to report on who has done what, how well and when.
Training is piped straight into The Royal Bank of Scotland's branches,
via its dedicated training and communications network, to multimedia
PCs, giving access to content at any time.
The Bank have observed a high degree of online learning usage across
the branch network. The programme will be extended to reach the
Natwest staff community as well as other subsiduary companies across
the Group.
Clive Shepherd, Director of the Institute for IT Training, said,
'This is probably the most successful example so far of the application
of e-learning to UK business.'
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