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How Moneybarn Developed Their Accredited Staff Induction Programme

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Peter Griffiths

Moneybarn began life in 1992 after recognising the need to help everyday people get the vehicle finance they need to live their lives, even if they’ve had difficulties getting loans elsewhere. Applying a clear focus on fair and responsible lending helped Moneybarn grow steadily until, in 2014, it was acquired by Provident Financial Group. Since then, growth has accelerated with progressive year-on-year increase in headcount.

Whilst great, as with any growing business this growth has created challenges with a more robust approach to processes needing to be adopted. With a focus on recruitment, updating the company’s induction programme was highlighted as a key area of need.

Original Induction Programme And The Need For Change

The original onboarding induction programme contained a day of information essentials and a welcome to the business. New starters were also required to complete 6 mandatory e-learning modules; Data Protection, Cybercrime, Anti-Money Laundering, Countering Bribery and Corruption, Conduct Risk & TCF and Vulnerable Customers.

Whilst covering the key essential messages in each of these subject areas, the modules lacked any context that helped the new recruits connect these messages to their new jobs and the company at large. Consequently, the onboarding programme lacked the engagement that it might have had with new recruits. This training approach sometimes proved challenging for recruits, particularly as many were inexperienced with little, often no, background in financial services.   

Given the continued increase in headcount and the feedback from new recruits, the HR team took the decision to overhaul the induction programme.       

New Induction Programme

The Learning & Development (L&D) Team created a three-part modular programme to accommodate different roles flexibly. The design aim being to extend the induction time, enabling new recruits to get a richer understanding of the industry landscape, the business and its customers before being introduced to some of the necessary, but more technical areas of systems and process.

The programme was named ‘Moneybarn ABC’. The first part, entitled ‘Access’, provided new recruits with an understanding of the company, i.e. it’s history, it’s structure, it’s culture and key processes, including IT security. The second part, entitled ‘Background’ provided an overview of the financial services landscape, i.e. the industry sector, FCA Regulation, etc.  and as new recruits had an understanding of the company and industry, the detailed modules on the company’s products, e.g. sub-prime car loans etc., made much more sense. The third and final module was called ‘Customer’. This module provided detail on typical customers, their demographic, needs etc. before then moving onto educating new recruits into the subtleties of dealing with these customers, e.g. identifying and managing vulnerable customers. Combined, the ABC programme gave new recruits a real sense of ‘place and time’.

Despite these vast improvements in the induction course design, the Moneybarn HR team were concerned that the programme should also be at the cutting edge of learning design, was ‘correctly pitched’ and that it was teaching the correct best practice messages from a regulatory perspective.

At this point the HR team contacted Worksmart’s regulatory training team.

Worksmart’s Contribution    

The Worksmart regulatory training team worked closely with Moneybarn to understand their business, their needs and their preferred projected outcomes. They worked with the Moneybarn L&D Department to review the induction programme content, giving feedback and making suggestions to finesse the programme from a best practice regulatory perspective.

Then, using their understanding of both the regulation and how leading companies in financial services implemented it, the Worksmart team cross referenced the materials in the programme to ensure the new recruits not only understood the regulatory rules, but also grasped how they should translate these rules into different aspects of their job, e.g. dealing with vulnerable customers.

Additionally, the Worksmart team spent time on site with staff, listening to staff calls with different types of customer. This time was invaluable as it really defined the culture of the organisation and allowed this to be woven into the fabric of the training, understanding specific adjustments to gauge the right balance for the company, i.e. processes, culture, products, customers and regulation. Finally, Worksmart reviewed and confirmed the final learning package with Moneybarn. 

The Results

Once the induction package was ‘up and running’ Moneybarn shared the materials with the Financial Services National College (formerly National Skills Academy for Financial Services). Moneybarn were delighted when the National College not only recognised the programme as a good piece of professional work, they accredited it.

In their assessment, the Financial Services National College described all three modules as being of an ‘excellent standard’ with supplementary comments such as; ‘all sessions stand out as excellent within what is a very learner focused programme’ and ‘there is a robust quality review process in place’. Most gratifying was the comment; ‘The NSAFS assessor found both the quality and the breadth of coverage exceptional. The Moneybarn programme is amongst the best of Induction programmes within the FS industry’.

Last but not least, Moneybarn recruits also liked the programme with one module being rated as ‘very good’ by 94% of course delegates and the other two modules being rated ‘very good’ by 100% of delegates.

High praise indeed!

Future Plans

Whilst the revised induction has been well received, Moneybarn are always looking for ways to improve. Following the launch of their new company vision and framework, strategic drivers and behaviours will be integrated into the existing induction material along with an SMCR focus. Future plans include a more comprehensive competence assessment at the end of induction to help with the smooth transition from training to job role.

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