One Bank March

One Bank

Exciting projects launching soon

TANDEM PEOPLE’S MAGAZINE

A Message from CEO Alex Mollart

Our Values

ENTERPRISING

We’re entrepreneurial, creative and authentic.

TOGETHER

We believe in one shared vision and that we’re all vital cogs in the wheel. When we rise together, everyone succeeds.

CEO Welcome Alex Mollart

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our second edition of our people magazine – One Bank!

We’ve had an unsettling start to the year, with the recent closing of Personal Loans product and reduction in headcount. This was a strategic change decision to enable the bank to continue its growth journey and strategy.

As the revised business plan sees an increased focus on Mortgages, Motor Finance, Home Improvement and Greener Lending, I’m please to share that as part of this process, we were able to keep 39 employees (almost half of the people affected) and move them into other areas of the Bank.

Cost Overview

In February’s Townhall, I shared the cost overview slide (right) which shows the overall 2023 trajectory of spend. The breakdown of non-people and people costs we’re saving with all these reduced travel spend and redundancy changes is pretty even, with around -£4m for reduction in people costs and -£4m for reduction in non-people costs.

What does it all mean?

In making these difficult decisions at the beginning of the year, we’ve steadied the Bank through these uncertain economic times, enabling us to stay on track to achieving our goals and being profitable. We all need to continue to play our part for the Bank to continue to grow in a controlled way throughout 2023.

2023 focus

In other news, Q1 saw us launch our new Mortgage propositions and we will continue to share more information in this area over the coming months. This is a huge area for potential growth for the Bank, and I’m excited to see where it’s going to go!

Q1 in review

Despite the challenging past few months, we've also been delivering some amazing projects across the Bank which we should all be proud of - the work that has gone into this, has been fantastic. Thank you to everyone for their contributions. Watch Video

“We all need to continue to play our part for the Bank to continue to grow in a controlled way throughout 2023”

A day in the life of Learning & Development

Each month, we showcase a department or team, who we believe are the unsung heroes of Tandem. This month, we’d like to introduce you to the Learning and Development team, as we speak to Head of Talent and Development, Kirsten Lightfoot.

How long has the team been working together?

The new Learning and Development team was formed in 2023 when I joined, so we are a new team although Nicolette, Mia and Kanchana were originally from our legacy brand Oplo, and Andy came from Allium.

Briefly introduce your team Kirsten…

The Team supports our people with all learning and development requirements across the Bank. We’re a hybrid team and based across the UK. I joined in January 2023, based in our Durham office, but you’ll find me in Blackpool once a week and visiting all sites throughout the year.

Training Manager Nicolette, is based in Blackpool, along with Mia and Kanchana. They all travel to our other sites, as and when is needed. Similarly, Andy is based in Cardiff, but travels to all sites to deliver our training programmes.

Andy Rios-Hall Operations Trainer

Learning and Development Officer

What is the team responsible for?

Our aim is to deliver a great colleague experience. We want our people to have the best opportunity to learn and grow, but that means that our people have a responsibility too. We‘re all responsible for our own learning - the L&D team empower our people with the right tools, experience and space to learn.

Can you give some examples of what projects you’re currently working?

• L&D strategy - It’s an exciting time for the team. We’re currently developing a 3−year L&D strategy, which includes identifying and developing career paths for employees within the Bank and several areas to focus on. One of our biggest focus areas, will be leadership development across all levels, and looking at how we can introduce a broader range of offerings, to create a new culture of leadership within Tandem.

• Training programmes - We have a good, core suite of products in our portfolio of training programmes, but we’re reviewing how we bring all our people together to work through things that really matter to them. You’ll start to see new elements being added to training programmes such as Action Learning Sets, Mentoring, Coaching and experiential learning for our people throughout 2023.

• Learning Management System (LMS) - We’re also improving the LMS, to make this more user-friendly with options for gamification (a way to boost engagement and interaction with our people), making mandatory learning more interesting.

• Mandatory training – We’re working with Compliance to remove any duplication of content and to make sure that you only get the training that is relevant to your role. This will be a significant change for those who are in non-customer facing roles.

How do you support our Ops teams?

We work closely with all Training & Competence (T&C) teams in the different Business Areas of the Bank. We have a monthly meeting together to share information and best practice, as well as avoid any duplication of work. We’re excited to be working as one-team to support our people.

T&C will deliver all technical training in the operational areas and continue to ensure that we maintain our competence, delivering great customer outcomes. This allows L&D to focus on the delivery of Leadership, Behavioural Development and Talent Development. Design work will remain with L&D.

In The Spotlight

Tandem launches into residential purchase market ahead of plan

In the spotlight is a special feature each month, focused on our products and business areas. This month we focus on our First Charge Mortgages team and their recent launch into the residential purchase market, following increased broker demand…

Tandem’s officially launched our much-anticipated residential purchase proposition. This comes earlier than expected, following the market’s positive reaction to how we’ve reimagined and streamlined our re-mortgage process.

What does this mean?

We’re working closely with mortgage brokers helping customers re-mortgage without unnecessary delays.

How do we do this?

We found that by tightening up the application process, it could reduce the time taken to complete the transaction. Plus, the brokers we work with have enjoyed being included in the legal process, which also has given them increased visibility of each customer.

Tandem’s Mortgage Division Managing Director, Steve Beard, said: “We’ve listened to our intermediary partners (brokers) and following positive feedback, we’re pleased to be able to launch our residential mortgage purchase product range earlier than expected.

We’re looking forward to delivering Tandem’s effective and quality service to intermediaries and their clients.

With the purchase products, we’ve kept the same easy to use process. Intermediaries can submit a client’s DIP request through our portal and decision engine and receive a copy of the applicant’s / lender’s credit file once the ESIS has been produced. This gives the adviser all the necessary information to make a correct recommendation to their client.”

Steve also added, “It’s worth remembering that as a deposit funded lender with strong savings products, Tandem is able to offer product transfers, further advances and porting to existing customers.”

Stayuptodate...

(link to https://www.linkedin.com/company/tandem-bank)

Womenin Tandem Alex Walker

Head of Recruitment

Alex joined Tandem in November as Head of Recruitment, having worked within the recruitment industry for almost 10 years. Alex brings a wealth of talent acquisition knowledge to Tandem and has had a really varied career recruiting for corporate businesses, start ups and scale ups, hiring volume roles to executive search. She has travelled the world recruiting, including living in Singapore whilst recruiting for the APAC region.

In 1 – 3 sentences, what do you do at Tandem?

In a nutshell - I recruit people to join Tandem. My role also involves building out the infrastructure behind our hiring, from the right processes to using the right tools to hire. My focus is bringing the very best talent into Tandem and ensuring an equitable recruitment and selection process for everyone.

What do you love about your role / working for Tandem?

The people really make the business and I am privileged to work with a diverse group of intelligent and talented people. My work has real impact in Tandem, it's a great feeling when you look around and know you helped to build the teams you work alongside.

What projects are you working on?

Refining our recruitment processes, building out interview documents and tools, researching and implementing technology that can help us hire, looking at ways to reduce our agency spend as well as building out a preferred supplier list, enhancing the Tandem careers page, improving recruitment data and reporting... the list goes on!

Where would we find you at the weekend?

Hiking with my dog, exploring, reading or playing rugby for Old Northamptonians ladies team.

What's your favourite book?

It’s too hard to choose one but maybe Braiding Sweetgrass, His Dark Materials or The Time Traveller’s Wife.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re continuing our celebration of women in Tandem. In an industry where women in finance is rare, we want to shine a spotlight and introduce some of these power women in our Bank…

Kirsten Lightfoot

People Development

Kirsten joined Tandem in January, bringing with her over 25 years’ experience having worked across a variety of learning, talent, training, and competence roles within the Financial Services sector, Nuclear, Transmission & Distribution, Oil & Gas and Conventional Power along with Further and Higher Education. She is passionate about people development and the skills agenda.

In 1 – 3 sentences, what do you do at Tandem?

It’s my job to design, develop and implement a talent and development strategy for the bank. This will look at our end-to-end journey from onboarding, through to competence and future career pathing for all colleagues. I’ll also be working closely with our executive team and senior leaders to build our future leadership capability.

What do you love about your role / working for Tandem?

I always think I have the best job in the world. I love working with people so having a role that allows me to engage with all colleagues across the bank is priceless for me. I love seeing people grow and develop, it’s so rewarding.

Best thing so far is our people. Everyone has been so welcoming. Every office feels like my home office. We should be proud of that culture and it says so much about Tandem and our leadership.

Your role sounds really interesting, and not one that many understand what it is, tell us how did you get into your role?

I left university and went to work for House of Fraser as a department manager, where I’d get roped into delivering training, and found I really enjoyed it. I then did my assessor qualification and that’s when my career really began. I started delivering CMI and ILM leadership and management programmes working in Further Education organisations. That was a great springboard into my role at AMEC where I was running our graduate and apprenticeship programmes. It was very different on the employer side to the provider side, and I really found my purpose there.

What are your work-space must haves?

Ah, love this question….must have two screens and LOTS of coffee on a morning! I much prefer to be in the office with people, it gives me my energy and I’m not going to lie, I like a natter!

Tandem Impact

41,116

Trees planted

49,980

Volunteering minutes

£114

2023 Charity donations

22

Our team Employees in Green Deal in 2023

Our customers

Customers making greener choices

Green home improvement lending > £1/2 bn

69%

Green loans

49,000 tonnes

>127k CO2

Employee Engagement Results

Thanks again to everyone who completed the employee engagement survey in February.

Key headlines

• Overall engagement score 7.7 (out of 10) increasing by +0.1

• Bank overall score continues to increase by +0.1, and 10 other metrics increased from previous scores

• Strongest metrics across majority of functions included Goal-setting, Management Support and Peer Relationships

• Total Reward increased yet again by +0.1

Engagement Score

What happens next?

It’s encouraging to see further positive scoring and we’re continue to work collaboratively together to act and implement changes.

This data has now been shared with our ExCo team and every head of department (including specific comments that need to be actioned).

Each team will then work through the results so that we can act at local levels, as well as across the organisation

Want to tell us more and have your say?

The great news is, now we’ve launched these regular engagement surveys, you can complete one every 5−6 weeks. So, if you have something you’d like to share to help us make Tandem a greater place to work, then you can!

7.7

Good: Continuous improvement

Tandem In the Press

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-raises-interest-rat es-on-savings-account-to-305percent/ar-AA176GHe?li=AAnZ9Ug

inews https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/saving-and-banking/ba nks-failing-pass-interest-rate-savings-accounts-bumper-profits-2 127354?ico=most_popular

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-11706427/B anks-savings-rates-following-base-rate-rise.html?ns_mchannel=r ss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

This is Money

Business Telegraph

https://www.businesstelegraph.co.uk/bank-raises-interest-rates-on-savin gs-account-to-3−05/

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/saving-and-banking/ba nks-failing-pass-interest-rate-savings-accounts-bumper-profits-2

Social Media Corner

How to update your profile in 2 simple steps!

LinkedIn is the largest professional social network platform and is constantly changing, updating and improving, which is why you should be too –whether you’re new to it or a pro!

It’s a great way to network with colleagues, partners and professionals, and a great extension of the Tandem brand – you are our biggest assets! Here’s an easy way you can instantly refresh your profile.

Update your job title and company information

Formally Oplo, Allium and old Tandem, all these name changes can make your LinkedIn profile outdated and confusing to any outsiders. It’s super important to update your company information if there’s been a change, or refresh your job title if you have been promoted!

Doing this ensures your profile is accurate, correctly branded and opens you up to new connections within your Tandem network.

Here’s some great examples of what ‘good’ looks like:

OUR People

Abs Alder

Information Security Analyst

Claire Harvie Executive Assistant

Alex Cartwright

Procurement Manager

Tom Briggs Service Delivery Manager

Matt Currie

Financial Planning & Analyst Accountant

Simon Tomlinson Financial Planning & Analyst Accountant

Leah Prow Customer Service Specialist

Maddie Lomax Accounts Assistant

Neal Smeathers SQL Data Warehouse Engineer

Ellie Dearden Assistant Company Secretary

Announcements

Key Milestones 5 years!

Congratulations!! We have some amazing anniversaries to celebrate this month...

Matt Davis HR Advisor

Since joining in 2018 I’ve seen a lot of changes to the business and the exposure I’ve had has enabled me to develop and progress my career. I’m also lucky enough to work within a great team and looking forward to what the next 5 years brings!

Congratulations!

Sheila Sanderson

Brand and Content Manager

Congratulations on the birth of her beautiful baby girl Pippa. Both Mama and Pippa are now home and doing well… We can’t wait to meet her for cuddles!

Happy St DavidsDay!

Everyone at Tandem

Wishing all our colleagues a very Happy St David’s Day for 1 March. Our lovely Cardiff colleagues celebrated the special day with daffodils and Welsh Cakes.

FinancialHealthcheck

Shop smarter and greener

We all know we need to do more to help protect our planet, so here’s a few ideas that’ll help your money go further AND be eco-friendly at the same time...

Resell, recycle, reduce

It’s never been easier to sell your unwanted things online, so you can refresh and renew your home and wardrobe with a couple of clicks. Plus, it’s never been cooler to buy pre-loved and vintage so you can do you.

Give your clothes a second life by selling them online, and on the high street too, with offers for money back when you recycle your unwanted stuff – anything from returning your empties to your old bra!

Not only is it money off something else you need, but it all helps to reduce waste and landfill. Trade-ins on your old tech are a great way to save money when you need to replace or upgrade your next phone, tablet or laptop.

Here’s your monthly tips on how to stay on top of your finances and make your money go further…

Make do and mend

Breathe life back into clothes and household objects with a quick repair, or a total facelift. Taking inspiration from Pinterest or Insta, why not learn new skills and know-how from YouTube?

From re-covering a stool with some new fabric, cutting the bottom off some jeans, or the waistband off an old sweatshirt, or getting the bobbles off your favourite (and very tired looking) jumper, you can fall back in love with your stuff, and enjoy it for longer.

Think about how you can reuse and recycle things you already have, and only buy it if you really need it or you’re going to get some definite use out of it. Once you start changing the way you shop, these saved pennies will soon add up and you’ll see a difference!

Seen it? Want it? Do it!

It’s never been easier to have a go yourself. Recreate your favourite looks for a fraction of the price - try buying lookalike goods and copy colour combos you’d never have thought of yourself, to create designer-looks in a weekend!

Clothing Recycling Stations

If you don’t fancy learning to sew or taking the time to resell, why not give your unloved wardrobe items to us? With clothing recycling stations at each of our offices, why not bring your items along, pop them in the allocated bins and Tandem will recycle them on your behalf! Just look out for the sign or contact ESG@Tandem.co.uk for more information.

FinancialEducation

update!

Blackpool FC Community Trust, Preston College and AFC Flyde sign up with Tandem

Three more organisations join Tandem’s expanding Financial Education programme in the North West

Following the success of the FinEd launch, Blackpool FC Community Trust, Preston College and AFC Fylde have all signed up to the programme, which is delivered free of charge either in classrooms or through its immersive mobile learning hub – the Tandem Bus.

As part of our Impact and ESG initiative, we plan to continue expanding the programme across the North West, before we roll out nationwide. The programme is helping more young people develop their financial literacy and make informed decisions about their money.

So far, Tandem’s delivered 19 sessions, supporting over 280 young people from the region, as well as a ‘Train the Trainers’ session, with 14 teachers learning how they could start to teach these important skills. Feedback has been resoundingly positive with students and teachers alike commenting on the quality and real life applicability, particularly amid a cost of living crisis.

It was a great day of collaboration and officially launched the project showcasing how Tandem's FinEd Programme fills the gaps in the next generation's financial literacy education.

“all aboard the FinEd Bus”

Alex Mollart, CEO of Tandem said:

“Through our Financial Education programme, we are proudly playing our part in ensuring the financial literacy of young people in the North West. As we face into a continuing cost of living crisis, it is more important than ever that people are equipped to make informed decision about their money.

We’re delighted to work with Blackpool FC, Preston College and AFC Flyde and look forward to welcoming them on board the Tandem Bus over the coming months.”

Preston College, said:

“The bus sessions are going down so well –our learners enjoy the idea of attending lessons in a new location and the fact that the bus could also accommodate our wheelchair users has been received really well. Andrew makes the sessions fun, accessible to all, and interesting. I appreciate the amount of time allocated to Preston College and we look forward to the remaining 5 weeks of sessions. Andrew’s one hour overview session, which I know he worked hard on, has also been received very well – the Kahoot style approach really engaged the larger groups.”

MeetOurCulture Champions

As we integrate the BEST Values into our everyday lives, we continue to recognise those who live and work by our core values – leading by example.

Each month we’ll spotlight our culture champions who have demonstrated they’re using our core values to help make Tandem great!

Nominee: Joanne Buch, Operations Manager Culture Champions for being Simple and Together...

I’d like to nominate and give a big thanks to Jo Buch in the Cardiff office for being a culture champion and displaying our BEST Values of Simple and Together.

Jo is always very busy but always finds time to catch up and support those around her. She is a star!

Nominated by Olivia Gatehouse

Nominee: Gary Addison, Information Security Ops Lead

Gary's contributions to the Information Security of Tandem are very inspiring. He is always working towards continuous improvement of the security perimeter of Tandem; as a quick example, recently, he has deployed several security solutions which are prestigious and cost-effective.

To get trained on the different systems, he also asked me if I'd like him to show me how to use some of the deployed security solutions because he knew I wanted to learn more about the investigative and technical tasks involved. He also offered to arrange a training for red teaming and offensive security to understand the security sector better and support the company.

Whenever I have questions or concerns, Gary helps in the best possible way—and even follows up later in the week or month to ensure my issues have been resolved. His work ethics and skills inspire me to work like him. He has helped motivate me to do the best job I can. He has been a great leader and mentor to me and maybe often an unsung hero of Tandem.

Nominee: Gwilym Williams, Risk Measurement Analyst

Gwil has recently supported my newly appointed Arrears Operations Manager, Joanne Buch by creating arrears data that will help Jo and her team to track their arrears performance against their impairment budget during the month and at month end.  Gwil has taken the time to understand Jo’s requirements with this and other arrears data requirements and produced reports that are simple and easy for Jo and team to understand.

Gwil has worked together with Jo on this piece of work and has demonstrated BEST values including simple and together.

The team and I love dealing with Gwil.  Nothing is ever too much trouble for him, and he’s really invested in ensuring that we have the data we need to be able to support our customers and monitor our performance.

Nominated by Samridh Ashish

Nominated by Michelle Beattie

Nominee: Mark Shelper, Key Relationship Manager

Mark embraces everything we look for within and outside of the business as a culture champion.  He is approachable and lives and breathes the values of our business by providing support to those colleagues who are learning about the world of mortgages. I regularly receive great feedback externally and internally where Mark has been able to provide solutions to very complex problems.

Nominated by Richard Angell

Nominee: David Venn, Key Relationship Manager

David has proved to be an asset to the business. I receive great feedback about David from within and outside of the business, even though he has only been here such a short period of time! He has instigated a number of initiatives internally and externally to provide us with a greater opportunity to gain traction in a very competitive mortgage market and ultimately in helping the business to become a fairer greener bank in the intermediary world.

Nominated by Richard Angell

Nominee: Vanessa Stell, Motor Finance Collections Team Leader

I’d like to recognise Vanessa and all the help and guidance she has provide to our Underwriting Team here in Cardiff. Vanessa is most definitely a culture champion, displaying our BEST Values. Vanessa came to Cardiff to deliver a full and in depth overview of Financial Cloud. Working together and across departments has helped understanding across both areas, building strong relationships along the way. Thank you Vanessa, from everyone at Cardiff Motor Finance Underwriting Team!

Nominated by Donna West

Nominees: Matt Davis, HR Advisor & Jess Richards HR Assistant

I’d like to nominate Matt Davis and Jess Richards for showing the true spirit of working TOGETHER. The past 2 months have been extremely busy and they have worked tirelessly making sure we continue to support the business as usual and catching any balls I may drop! It is refreshing working with people who share similar values and the support they give me, each other and the wider team is something they should be very proud of. Thank you both for making my job a little bit easier!

Nominated by Sally Howcroft

Nominees: Naieed Haque, Senior Test Analyst & Zoe Todd, Junior Test Analyst & Gavin Langley, Junior Test Analyst

They always are available to help me out when I need some development work/changes testing, do this without fuss and are always happy to do this over a call whilst discussing the change. They are always able to test every different outcome I need and with their assistance it makes it easier for me to release high quality work. I really appreciate all they do to help make my job easier!

Nominated by David Rigby

Nominee: James Cooke, Service Delivery Analyst

Why is James the perfect candidate for this? He so effortlessly and genuinely lives and breathes Tandem Values. Brave enough to take on a task when his diary is near full and yes that includes the unknown, helping me with software for digital content that neither of us knew much about. Always looking out for new ideas that may work and so big on motivating me when something doesn’t go to plan, extremely Enterprising oh and his forte, explaining things to me in Simple terms so I can do it on my own when I need too but ALWAYS let’s me know that he’s a message away so we can do it together if it doesn’t work out for me. He’s an absolute gem.

Nominated by Mia Javed

Culture champions for being Brave, Simple, Enterprising and always Together! Virtual hugs for an amazing trio! Thanks for inspiring me to be the BEST version of myself. Nic, Andrew and Kanchana, TOGETHER you are the perfect ambassadors of our values. You drive simplicity with clear and honest communication, always show initiative to drive and recognise opportunities. Without a doubt the best team and boss!

I’d like to nominate Cam for being a Culture Champions and living and breathing our values of being Enterprising, Simple and Together. Cam always puts his customers first and adds value to our requests. He’s super friendly and makes working together a breeze, by listening to our requirements and finding great solutions. His support with the TV comms rollout and Townhalls is really appreciated – knowing I have his support and he always goes above and beyond. He’s a great asset to Tandem.

Nominee:

Brave: Gary's contributions to the Information Security of Tandem are very nspiring. He is 100% committed to his role and always ready to take any challenges and tasks.

Enterprising: He is always working towards continuous improvement of the security perimeter of Tandem; as a quick example, recently, he has deployed several security solutions which are prestigious and saved a ot of money for Tandem.

Simple: Whenever there are questions or concerns, Gary helps his colleagues and teammates in the best possible way—and even follows up later in the week or month to ensure the issues have been resolved. His work ethics and skills inspire me to work like him.

Together: He has helped motivate me to do the best job I can. He has been a great leader and mentor to me and maybe often an unsung hero of Tandem.

Nominees: Andy Rios-Hall, Operations Trainer & Nicolette Cummins Training Manager & Kanchana Thatmee, Training Support Administrator

Nominated by Mia Javed

Nominee: Cameron Schofield, Service Desk Team Leader

Nominated by Sinead Elliott

Gary Addison, Information Security Ops Lead

Nominated by Samridh Ashish

Nominee: Rory Baker, Infrastructure Manager

Brave - 100% Committed to his role.

Enterprising -  Handling several projects including tasks to bring all 3 companies together under one domain.

Simple - Can explain complex situation or issues in very simple terms. Together - Always treats everyone with respect and equality.

Nominated by Samridh Ashish

Nominee: Inga Schorno, Head of Information Security

Brave - Always ready to face challenges to make the right decisions for the company.

Enterprising - Resourceful to find best solutions for the company Simple - Can explain complex situation or issues in very simple terms. Together - Always treats everyone with respect and equality.

Nominated by Samridh Ashish

Nominee: Sarah Allen, Information Security Cloud Engineer

Brave - Professional, respectful and straight to the point when it comes of tasks and targets.

Enterprising - Very skilled and have solutions for various tasks involved in securing the cloud assets of the company.

Simple - Can explain complex situation or issues in very simple terms. Together - Always treats everyone with respect and equality.

Nominated by Samridh Ashish

Nominate a colleague!

We want to continue to grow our culture and that starts with each and every one of you! All nominations submitted need to demonstrate how they're Brave, Enterprising, Simple or Together.

SEND YOUR NOMINATION(S) TO:

internalcomms@tandem.co.uk

One Bank