Its vision of ‘making lives better’ underpins everything the employer does, having gone on a journey of rebuilding trust between the business, leadership, management and its employees.
Karen Bowes, vice-president of international HR and sustainability at Capital One, says: “It is hard to compete with employers with a big external brand to attract people but our employment brand is strong and is key to attracting the best talent.
“We have a number of things that stand out to create this environment, pulling on all the levers to be a great place to work and an environment that is a destination for new people.”
Capital One’s transformation focused staff towards four different principles: power of purpose, leadership being present, motivation and a sense of camaraderie and fun.
Its employee value proposition also focuses on benefits in the context of total reward. It promotes benefits such as private medical insurance, pensions and bikes for work, and also ensures that staff are given details about their working environment, development opportunities and health and wellbeing initiatives.
Bowes adds: “From day one, people have onboarding classes and learn about the history and values of the organisation; then it is about bleeding in the aspects of reward, letting employees tailor benefits to their needs.
“But leadership is key to being a destination employer; we have fantastic open and transparent leaders who are very accessible. There is a real sense of fun and camaraderie working here, and [being a destination employer] is about creating that type of environment.”
As a result, Capital One has been named the UK’s best large employer in the Great Place to Work Institute’s ‘Best Workplaces 2015’ awards for the third year running.
Karen Bowes will be speaking at Employee Benefits Live on 22 September.
