Title	HSBC NOW
Brand	HSBC
Product/Service	HSBC
Category	B05. Internal Communications & Employee Engagement
Entrant	HSBC London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	HSBC London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	MERCHANTCANTOS London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Jenny Varley	HSBC	Global Head of Content and Employee Digital Platforms

The Campaign

From the outset, the channel was different. It was built around clear, original, creative concepts: INTERACTIVE From the first programme, we were overwhelmed with story ideas sent directly from employees. We built on this by developing an app in 2015-16 to allow employees to film and send video directly to the production team. This has produced a genuinely democratic platform. PERSONAL We focus on personal stories to build a sense of community. For example, we achieved a 65,000-strong audience when we followed Wendy Trehiou from HSBC Jersey successfully completing a 2-way channel swim. Raj Bhuller’s appeal for a stem cell donor in 2015-16 reached over 130,000 employees and sparked a worldwide donor drive that helped save his life. HONEST Honesty has helped us grow our audience. For example, a frank and direct animation explaining what went wrong at the HSBC Swiss Private Bank was watched by more than 85,000 employees.

Execution

IMPLEMENTATION HSBC Employee Insight & Communications has an internal team of producers who source and develop stories. They have editorial autonomy and sign off, and work closely with an external agency (MerchantCantos) to deliver broadcast-quality films. TIMELINE This project was started in early 2012 and it has launched at least one new film every week since then. PLACEMENT Initially, HSBC NOW was distributed weekly on the bank’s intranet as well as via team meetings and ambient screens. Increasingly staff wanted to share the films externally so we launched on YouTube and Twitter. We’ll also be on Facebook early in 2017. SCALE This project has broken all the bank's video audience records and has achieved response rates far beyond expectations. A 2016 survey of 24,000 employees showed that HSBC NOW content is employees' #1 source of pride in the company.

TIER 1 Audience research shows conclusively that HSBC NOW has succeeded in rebuilding trust and connecting employees to each other and the bank: - 77% of NOW viewers feel part of one global HSBC community versus 62% of non-viewers. - A 2016 survey of 24,000+ employees shows HSBC NOW's campaign to find a stem cell donor for Raj Bhuller was the number one reason people are proud to work at HSBC. TIER 3 HSBC NOW reaches more employees than we ever expected. An average item will reach45,000 staff and a popular item will easily double that. Externally, our twitter handle (@HSBC_NOW) has over 52,000 followers and is growing. For example, our International Women’s Day film was viewed by 272,614 people and our 2016 Pride content was viewed over 650,000 times.

The Situation

HSBC NOW is one of the world's largest employee engagement projects. At a time of deep turmoil for HSBC, it reversed a top-down communications culture with a video channel that puts rank-and-file employees at the centre of compelling and well-constructed stories. The audience size and the well-documented impact show that this long-running project delivered some of its best-ever work in 2015/16.

The Strategy

AUDIENCE 257,600 people in 71 countries, in a wide range of roles. HSBC is a hugely diverse organisation and effective communication has to engage every one of them. MEDIA We started internally, switching off over 100 local staff intranet homepages and launched a compelling global homepage featuring video. We have now taken the channel externally via Twitter and YouTube. PLANNING / APPROACH The service is driven by the needs and interests of the audience – our employees. This was a major break with the top-down approach of the past. We make a point of featuring employees talking directly about issues that affect them. Here are some examples from 2015/16: - LGBT employees talking about 'coming out at work'. - An employee with OCD explaining how his colleagues help him work effectively. - An employee showing how his experiences in childhood made him understand the value of credit.