Bank of Ireland

In 2021, the Bank of Ireland’s (BOI) annual employee engagement survey found that less than half of colleagues (44 per cent) felt they were provided with the resources and opportunities to develop the skills they needed to thrive in a digital environment. The organisation recognised that a lack of data-led insights in areas such as career mobility, personal strengths, interests and development opportunities made it very difficult for people managers to support colleague growth.

With attracting and retaining talent becoming increasingly challenging, the BOI’s people team knew it had to think differently in terms of its employee value proposition and how it supported colleagues’ careers. 

The BOI Careers Lab, an ‘always on’ digital careers platform, launched in October 2010. It was the result of 10 months of work, driven by a small core project team and large cross-divisional collaboration between HR, IT, procurement, legal, data protection and internal communications, plus additional external support from platform Fuel50. 

The BOI acknowledged that previously there had been a “siloed approach” to development programmes within the organisation, so the “one-stop solution” aimed to make it easier for colleagues to access information and opportunities. 

The launch was no mean feat because the technology had to be integrated within the existing IT infrastructure. The release of different modules was phased to prevent employees from becoming overwhelmed, and an intensive communications plan had to be drawn up and implemented across the organisation. But despite the challenges, the programme resulted in a workforce adoption rate of 96 per cent and the feedback was “extremely positive”. 

In the 2023 employee engagement survey, 68 per cent of colleagues said they had been provided with the resources and opportunities to develop the skills they needed to thrive in a digital environment, up 24 per cent on 2021. Also, 68 per cent indicated that they believed there to be opportunities to progress within BOI. 

The PMAs judges were impressed by the BOI’s approach of promoting the initiative as a career support tool rather than a technology platform. They said: “What made the BOI really deserving of the win was that it achieved very high engagement levels and made a positive impact on the business at the beginning of its digital transformation journey.”