Hello all, a slight change in format for the digest this month, as we head towards the end of the year and the festive period. It includes a 2021 commercial review with an eye on 2022 priorities, a customer experience review of the year, the latest community news, plus a network update and reminder of some of the content shared throughout the year.

Firstly though, a message from our interim CEO, Stephen White.

I’ve already written separately following recent announcements, and Stephen White stepping up as Interim CEO, but Stephen asked for a short slot in the digest (which he sees every month) to say thanks to you direct and provide some reassurance.

“Thanks in part to your hard work, 2021 has been an outstanding year for us both in terms of running the business and changing the business. As you will have hopefully seen in the pack cascading the key messaging shared at ‘Our Blueprint: One Year On’ events (if not, it is attached as a blog to the digest this month), we’re coming to the end of a truly successful first year delivering on that Blueprint.

As we go into year two, I want to reassure you that our purpose and those priorities remain exactly the same. We’ve got clarity on what we need to do in 2022, and we all know that how we do it is going to be critically important too. Agencies remain a key component of our retail network, which itself is central to our Strategic Blueprint.

Continuing to deliver on our purpose, making real help with real life happen, whilst we work together to transform our business, is something I know all of us are behind.

Change can be unsettling. I will be working even more closely with Mike in the weeks ahead to ensure we have a smooth handover and I will do my very best to bring stability and continuity in my new role as Interim CEO.  I know that will be matched by your ongoing commitment to our customers and our communities. Guided by our Strategic Blueprint, everyone’s done amazing work this year. So I would like to say a sincere thank you for that – and here’s to continuing that journey together in 2022”.

Commercial Update

Savings

At a YBS level, our overall balances are £35.83Bn. The retail network holds £26.54Bn of this, and has seen net growth YTD of £1.31Bn which is £378m ahead of plan. 

Below are some highlights at agency network level, which shows standout performance across a number of metrics – new money, net growth, new accounts, fixed rate retention - evidencing the focus given to both attracting and retaining funds. Every agency has played its part, so thank you - you’ve all contributed helping our members towards greater financial resilience. Somewhat predictably, my request is for more of the same in 2022, starting with January where we have another bumper maturity book.

Mortgages

Fewer mortgage highlights to share, although the Society had a great year in 2021. Those agencies who refer to YBS Direct Mortgages team made 155 referrals. With the new partnership discussed at length in Novembers digest, I’m hopeful of an increase on this number next year, as we endeavour to contribute to the Society’s aim to help more members into a place to call home. Agencies who can provide direct business have submitted £8.5m in YBS applications this year, in addition to those via Accord. Please remember that, uniquely, you have both options available to your advisers.

The trading conditions for both savings and mortgages were quite favourable in 2021, the same probably can’t be said for 2022, when it will be much more challenging. This short (4 mins) video outlines this challenge YBS Real Life Headwinds video on Vimeo (password is ‘oneyearon’).

The video is an extract from a ‘Strategic Blueprint – One Year On’ event held recently. This month’s blog contains a full cascade pack of this event, which has been made available to your teams to cover in the retail briefing slots throughout December. I’d recommend it would be time well spent for you to discuss this with them when planning next year

2022 will certainly require everyone to take an even more focused and proactive approach if we are to replicate the success of 2021. The good news is that this will involve building on some of the activity already started in 2021, and which has been the subject of the monthly blogs – outbound calls to proactively engage with customers, Training & Competency activity to maintain and develop your teams capabilities, local marketing and community activity to raise awareness of YBS and your agencies, and encouraging digital adoption so that more customers can self-serve with basic transactions, freeing up your teams to spend time with customers on more value adding and business generating activities. You'll find all this years blogs here.

Customer Experience Update

If commercial success is a by-product of an excellent customer experience (which I believe to be the case), then the agency network is well placed to take advantage with an excellent set of results from the transaction Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys that have taken place throughout 2021.  An NPS of 86, an overall satisfaction score of 96%, and 97% of those surveyed scoring us as easy to deal with - all scores that you should be very proud of.

Whilst the scores really speak for themselves, I also wanted to share some verbatim comments from these surveys from a wide selection of agencies across the whole network. The hardest task here was cutting down the ones I wanted to include. Your DM will have your own verbatim comments.

• The Staff could not have been more helpful and informative.
• The information given by the staff in the agency is second to none. They were friendly, very helpful and professional. As are all the staff I have dealt with. Excellent.
• I always find the staff very polite and helpful, so you can't improve on that! Well done.
• Charming, a pleasure to go in, always greeted with a smile. Will keep us informed of change, very business like.
• I was extremely pleased with the service that I was given at the agency.  It was both professional and informative.  I have mentioned this to friends and family.  It was a pleasure to do business with the YBS.
• The staff are consistently welcoming and extremely efficient. They always provide an excellent service.
• The opening hours are convenient, the office is welcoming and the staff are very efficient,  pleasant and helpful.
• Staff were polite, attentive, efficient - what more could a customer expect!
• I am always very satisfied with the excellent service you provide thank you.
• Very straightforward. I always find the staff very pleasant and helpful. I feel very at home there.
• Relaxed, informative, interview conducted with empathy.
• The staff are so very nice and friendly, making it very comfortable when you are in there. It's nice to 'have a chat' with them.
• Extremely helpful and friendly. I had several accounts which required updating, some required transferring into other accounts, and also some new accounts were set up. All this was carried out efficiently and patiently. I don't know how I would have completed all this online. Full marks to the ladies at the agency, you can't beat personal service.
• Very efficient, pleasant staff. Very good Covid precautions - a safe environment.
• Can’t fault the Customer Service. Always happy to help 😊 and friendly

Network Updates

Having shared an update on the new structure last month, I wanted to confirm this will be implemented on 28 February 2022. In the interim period continue to contact your Development Manager. As some of the DM’s are being redeployed into new roles that start before the new structure is implemented, you may be provided with a short term alternative contact, if so I’ll let you know. As we are using this interim period to prepare the Retail Area Managers for their new integrated leadership role looking after branches and agencies, please refrain from contacting them, but they are keen to get started and will be in touch. 

Your teams should continue to use Business Support for any urgent operational queries, and I wanted to remind you of a guide issued a few months back to help your team direct their queries to the right place. It includes loads of useful information, such as who makes up Business Support, meet the team, who to call/what to check, agency discretion, useful links and numbers, quick guides and new starter processes. This is aimed at improving the colleague and customer experience. When it was launched, I stated it would be updated as required, so please encourage your teams to use this and provide feedback to Business Support.

I’ve spoken in previous digests about the Desktop refresh, and that we’ve been undertaking some test and learn activity. Colleagues in these branches have really seen the benefits of Windows 10 on their branch kit. Some tech gremlins reared their heads with some network issues and we are looking at what caused it, hopefully not long to wait now, as we’re still planning to kick the rollout off again in early Jan. Your DM can advise of your swap over date.

As we approach the end of the year, we also approach the end of a half year period under the Agency T&C scheme. I know your DM’s have encouraged you to complete the required activity early so hopefully many of you have already done this, but just a reminder that the quarterly 121 and half yearly observation is due by the 31 December 2021 to ensure you earn your quality assurance bonus commission payment.

Also linked to this is the monthly risk checks, due each month on the 26^th, due to this being a bank holiday, can you please ensure a fully completed set of checks is received by Business Support by 23 December. We constantly review the operational risks associated with our retail network, and this has led to some slight changes to the checks which will be included in training to your colleagues in January, please can you ensure they are given time to attend this as it’s essential to keep The Society, your agency and our customers safe, more details will follow.

Community Update

A big welcome to Sarah Peachey, the new Community Engagement Manager, in the Social Purpose and Sustainability team.  Sarah will be responsible for community-related comms and will be working with the CELs to review how the retail network can engage with the YBS purpose. Sarah joins us from Business in the Community, where she worked as a Relationship Manager and has good knowledge of social purpose and broader ESG issues.

Also watch this space as in 2022 we’ll be pulling together a calendar of activities, including training on what and how people can get involved with the community.

Small Change Big Difference

• Our overall YTD figure sits at 41%, with our branches at 44% currently and agencies at 39%. Without people opting in , the Charitable Foundation wouldn't be able to give donations to those in need. So thank you for your commitment to talking to customers about Small Change Big Difference.

Charitable Foundation

• Final call for quarter four Charitable Foundation nominations (deadline 31 December 2021). January can be a bleak month for many charities, with donations significantly decreasing, especially for food banks and homeless charities. This year you can make a difference and nominate. Make sure you get your nominations in to be in with a chance for the Charitable Foundation to donate up to £2,000 to your chosen charity.

Age UK

• It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our retail network with Christmas hamper raffles and wish-giving Christmas trees.
• The retail network has been leading the way on fundraising and has raised a fantastic £84,258 with over £67,000 being raised in 2021, of which £12,959 was through agencies
• The total sum of money raised for our Age UK partnership is £435,450, putting us at 43% of our fundraising target. This money has enabled us to support 1,226 older people through our Building Better Lives program, which provides one-to-one support to older people with life events and challenging financial situations.
• There is still time to get involved with Christmas fundraising. It has been wonderful seeing all the Christmas activities inside the branch, and there is still time to get involved. Why not try a hamper raffle or sell your Christmas decoration or seasonal pin badges.
• We're also supporting Age UK through our 'Helping a Brighter Christmas Happen' campaign in our retail network. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the simple steps we can encourage each other and our customers to take to support older people during this time.
• Run Your Age is back! Why not start 2022 with a different kind of challenge – one which will help Age UK give older people the support they need and get your year off to a good start? Run Your Age is about giving you the control to create a challenge your way whilst raising much-needed funds for Age UK. If you want to get involved, you can find out more on the community hub.

Future Minds

• Future Minds: We’ve now gone live with our new digital platform to support 11-19+ with free employability (Career Minds) and financial education (Money Minds) interactive content. We are calling on our colleagues to get involved and try out the learning modules and games with the young people in their lives. If you want to have a play, head across to the future minds website (which can be found through the intranet). Then it is time to let us know what you think by taking part in our Future Minds survey. We'd love for you to spread the message and encourage your peers to get involved, but hurry the Future Minds survey will close at the end of December.

As ever, I hope you have enjoyed the final digest of 2021. I hope you find the time to have a relaxing and happy festive period with your families and friends and will look forward to reconnecting again in 2022.