Headlines from my podcast with Bupa's Chief Brand & Corporate Affairs Officer Zoe Vafadari
Zoe shared her views and tips on the vital role engaged employees play in driving culture, brand advocacy and a better customer experience
If you haven’t had a chance to listen to my podcast chat with Zoe from a couple of weeks ago; these were the key talking points.
You can listen to the podcast here.
On why Zoe initially moved from brand comms into internal comms
Zoe had been working in brand communications and sponsorship for a number of years and saw the move into an internal comms role as an opportunity to ensure that the brand that she’d been busy telling everybody about externally was as relevant to employees. And to build influence from the inside out.
On the vital link between employee engagement and customer experience
Zoe moved from internal comms to customer experience and then back to internal comms and sees the relationship between engagement and CX as a virtuous circle in that engaged employees are often engaged because they feel the brand is doing the right thing for customers. Once employees see that positive customer experience in action, it often drives pride and a commitment to continuous improvement.
On how Bupa is using an app to connect back office roles to the customer experience
Zoe references a current initiative underway at Bupa called Customer Listening; an app that any employee can access and something that Bupa’s leaders and back office colleagues are encouraged to do. Every week, customer calls are uploaded, particularly the negative calls so colleagues get to listen to some of the biggest pain points that our customers face. People are then encouraged to submit ideas to help improve that process. Once you’ve submitted an idea, people can see the ideas that other colleagues have suggested and vote on those ideas.
Colleagues will receive an email letting them know if any of their submitted ideas are to be taken forward. Every employee is empowered to contribute and make a difference wherever they work in the business.
On the critical role employee engagement plays in the health and vitality of the brand
Zoe believes employees are a company’s biggest brand asset and companies should consistently give them reasons to be proud that they chose to work for the brand.
She references Bupa’s current sponsorship of GB’s paralympics team and employee pride, engagement and advocacy it has generated.
On what she’s learned from her internal comms experience that she can apply to brand strategy
Zoe says that working in internal comms gives you the opportunity to shape the culture and the values of the business, and to really get clear on who you are as a business and what you stand for. She believes that clarity of purpose is like gold dust when it comes to shaping the brand strategy too because it helps you to make consistent brand building decisions that really align with how colleagues feel about the company that they work for. People are a brand’s biggest asset and need to be its biggest advocates. Employees need to see real correlation with how we communicate to them and what we project as a brand and her experience in internal comms has influenced her approach to that.
On what internal comms can learn from the brand discipline
Zoe thinks that, by nature, brands need to be more externally focused, more aware of competitors and a bit more curious about new strategies and new techniques to engage audiences. She thinks that approach can really benefit internal communications and audiences too. She also thinks that when brand and internal comms are really aligned on messaging, that's when the magic happens.
On internal comms budgets versus brand budgets and tackling the perception challenge
Zoe suggests that, because every company has its own priorities and market dynamics, brand and employee engagement budgets should be considered together. For example, Bupa’s Paralympics sponsorship benefits colleague engagement. She thinks there's possibly a perception challenge that could be addressed by better making the link between brand building initiatives and colleague engagement. Businesses work really hard together.
On how the sponsorship of the GB Paralympics team helps engage employees with the D&I agenda
The GB paralympics team partnership is only a few weeks old, but Zoe shares that the sponsorship provides an opportunity to acknowledge that the company has got a lot to learn and plans to invite Paralympians in to test some of its customer journeys and share a view of what’s working well and what could be improved. The aim is to ensure the partnership is “a learning model”.
On managing comms in a large global business
Bupa has 84,000 colleagues, 38 million customers and operations in Europe, Middle East India, Asia Pacific and the Americas and Zoe says that the company has a global purpose that acts as a “global glue” and global comms is strengthened by having aligned goals, aligned priorities, and ensuring the central team has good relationships with peers across those many different countries.
On brand purpose, its authenticity and the role it plays at Bupa
In response to the suggestion from one of my podcast guests that many companies manufacture their purpose, Zoe argues that Bupa’s purpose is very present and very visible and is often spoken about, reviewed and amended.
For example, the core purpose has always been Helping people live longer, healthier and happier lives, but the company has recently added “And making a better world" to reflect the company’s commitment to sustainability; a commitment reinforced by Bupa’s Healthy Cities and Eco programmes.
On the link between purpose and values, supporting Ukrainian refugees and taking inspiration from Dolly Parton
Bupa’s three values are Brave, Caring and Responsible and Zoe believes that they sum up the elements of Bupa that the organisation should protect. Caring was only one of its previous values that remains because it's central to what Bupa does. Whereas “Brave captures what we want to change about ourselves” as the healthcare sector undergoes a major transformation with a greater focus on digital services.
Zoe references a Dolly Parton quote “Know who you are and then do it on purpose” and suggests that having three relevant values makes it easier for a company to know who it is and act on those values.
For example, she shares that the ‘Brave’ value powerfully came to the fore recently when Bupa colleagues in Poland rallied to help refugees arriving in the country from Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. Asa result, all Ukrainian refugees arriving in Poland are able to get healthcare and support from Bupa and, at the time of the interview the company has provided 180,000 treatments to over 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. “A great example of being brave, acting quickly, knowing who we are and doing it on purpose.”
On the unexpected role that data and PPE masks can play in storytelling
Zoe reflected on the power of storytelling and shared a couple of examples of stories in action. The first was from the beginning of the pandemic while she was working at broadband services provider Talk Talk. When people went outside to clap for the NHS every Thursday night, she shares that Talk Talk saw a big change in its network usage at eight o'clock on a Thursday night and it took a while to process what was happening. The company quickly realised that this was when everybody had stopped watching Netflix and had gone outside to clap for the NHS for five minutes. The company produced “a wonderful data chart that was also a story about how the country was responding to the pandemic which the business shared with its people and with different media as a story summary of what was happening in, in the world at that, at that crazy time.”
Another example Zoe shares is from Cromwell Hospital where some of Bupa’s children patients found doctors during the pandemic wearing PPE to be quite an intimidating sight. To counter that, the doctors painted their face masks to look like Marvel superheroes and characters with smiley faces. She said these stories were great examples of the values and what makes Bupa a caring and responsible business.
The next episode of the Delete Delete Engage podcast, live on 29 September, will feature my conversation with Experian’s Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Wil Lewis