We are navigating significant and ambitious change at Nationwide, the world’s largest building society, including the recent acquisition of Virgin Money. It is an exciting time, as we evolve to a new future that sees us accelerate delivery of value to our millions of members and culturally, engage colleagues in new ways of working. Delivering good outcomes for customers in vulnerable circumstances is at heart of that.

As a senior manager in the Customer Vulnerability team for this 24 month fixed term contract, you’ll be responsible for defining, developing, and delivering vulnerability and inclusion strategies that will have a meaningful positive impact on our customers, colleagues, wider stakeholders, and our risk & control environment. You will help identify, build and manage internal and external activities to support the Society’s vision of offering fairer and more rewarding banking to society. This role will bring to life vulnerable-customer-centricity that is core to our overarching purpose and values as a modern mutual.

This role reports to the Head of Customer Vulnerability in Customer Propositions, within the Customer, Brand and Engagement function.

We are happy to consider flexible working approaches to help you perform at your best.

At Nationwide we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.

For this job you'll spend at least two days per week, or if part time you'll spend 40% of your working time, based at either our Swindon, London, Bournemouth or Northampton office. If your application is successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this works. You can also find out more about our approach to hybrid working here.

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

What you’ll be doing

You'll understand that delivering good customer outcomes starts with understanding the needs of customers and designing treatment strategies that can mitigate the risk of harm if those needs are not met. You’ll also appreciate that supporting our colleagues to deliver those treatment strategies, is also important whether that’s a frontline colleague or a product owner.

You’ll be responsible for creating and managing a range of customer-centric initiatives; from identification of the intial customer or business need, through to delivery of the target outcome, embedding and monitoring. You’ll have a thorough understanding of vulnerability drivers as diverse as divorce, carer responsibilities or dementia, that we will need to solve for. Responsibility includes leadership on the Society-wide response to particular themes, where other areas may need to close potential gaps. You’ll achieve this by bringing together functions supporting how work gets done, optimising workflows and supporting and enabling wider teams to succeed.

With a broad agenda, you’ll drive prioritisation decisions within your portfolio but across the wider Society. You’ll be responsible for securing stakeholder buy-in, building the business case, value optimisation, delivering on customer journey improvements and ensuring that resilience and regulatory commitments are met in the most optimum way. You’ll deliver customer-centric solutions that don’t sacrifice operational and commercial considerations.

With a clear regulatory focus on good customer outcomes and the treatment of vulnerable customers, you will be involved in compliance-related activity, including the outcome of reviews, and be responsible for leading the co-ordination and/or delivery of organisation wide actions to address any issues and mitigate risks identified internally or externally.

You’ll work individually, with others and through others, to have far-reaching impact as we accelerate our plans and deliver against our vision. Whether you’re building for our customers or our colleagues, you’ll define the objectives and key results, ensuring input to relevant reporting and communications. You’ll develop an insight agenda on our member needs, ensuring everything that we’re doing is anchored in the ‘why’ and building and driving a near term continuous improvement agenda across the value stream aligning closely with wider customer journey improvements.

You’ll provide regular papers and inputs to senior committees to prompt and provoke the right level of consideration and action. As well as being a key internal vulnerability leader, you’ll also be externally-facing, representing Nationwide at relevant industry forums, meetings and events.

About you

• Your skills as an authentic leader, with exceptional communication, organisation and influencing ability, strategic focus and a strong track record of delivering complex change programmes through collaboration, will ensure the Society delivers end-to-end market defining outcomes for our customers and creates competitive advantage.
• You’ll be a leading voice on vulnerability, with knowledge and experience of the issues and opportunities, including good understanding of the regulatory environment.
• You are abreast of the latest industry activity, consumer trends, government priorities and emerging technologies, as it relates to vulnerability and its adjacencies.
• You have first-hand experience of designing solutions that are customer-centrict through research, insight and user testing with a variety of audiences
• You are able to evaluate insight and data from multiple sources, quickly identify key themes and join dots to solve problems where there is no clear right or wrong answer and are able to articulate recommended solutions effectively to leadership including ExCo.

• You can provide leadership, oversight and strategic direction to the vulnerability team and wider business.
• You have a well-developed network and experience of successfully managing relationships both internally (up to ExCo level) and externally.
• You have previous experience in a role responsible for translating a complex, ambiguous, rapidly evolving environment into clear requirements for an organisation.
• You are a succinct storyteller who has advanced paper writing and presenting skills.

Our customer first behaviours put customers and members at the heart of how we work together. They are the set of behaviours that every colleague needs to display, in every role:

• Feel what customers feel - We step into our customers’ shoes, using their feedback and insights to empathise with them and to understand their needs, so that every decision we make starts and finishes with our customers in mind

• Say it straight - We are brave in speaking out and saying what we think – we’re honest and direct with good intent, openly sharing diverse perspectives to reach the best conclusions and using language everyone can understand
• Push for better - We don’t settle for mediocrity, we challenge the status quo, taking responsibility for continuous improvement and personal development
• Get it done - We prioritise what will have the greatest impact, we are decisive, and we take accountability for delivering brilliant customer outcomes.

You can strengthen your application by showing how our customer first behaviours resonate with you, and where you may have already demonstrated these.

The extras you’ll get

There are all sorts of employee benefits available at Nationwide, including:

• A personal pension – if you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top up by a further 16%
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year
• Life assurance worth 8x your salary
• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Wellhub – Access to a range of free and paid options for health and wellness.
• Access to an annual performance related bonus
• Access to training to help you develop and progress your career
• 30 days holiday, pro rata
• Individual healthcare cover

Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society

We forge our own path at Nationwide.

As a mutual, we’re owned by our members - those customers who bank, save or have a mortgage with us. We challenge the financial sector status quo. We don’t see customers as the engine of our own profit. We share our profits with them and put their needs first. Always there when they need us. Supporting them and their lives.

If you’re inspired by fairer finances, passionate about making a meaningful impact, and truly care about our customers, you’re one of us.

At Nationwide, you are challenged to grow and rewarded for doing so. Valued. Recognised. Inspired to be your best. As a community we want our working lives to count. As a team, we celebrate what we achieve. As a standard-setter, we work for the good of customers, communities, and broader society.

We are Purpose-driven. Uncompromisingly Customer. Unstoppably Nationwide.

What to do next

If this role is for you, please click the ‘Apply Now’ button. You’ll need to attach your up-to-date CV and answer a few quick questions for us.

We respond to everyone, so we will be in contact shortly after the closing date to let you know the outcome of your application.

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