But its HR director, David Smith, recognises that such fast growth can foster uncertainty and anxiety as well as generate cultural change that is not always positive.

 

As a result, his aim is to try and keep employee engagement high on the corporate agenda in order to help steer the company through what could otherwise be turbulent waters.

“Primarily, we do everything possible to make sure we recruit the right people, reward them correctly, train them well and develop them constantly,” Smith says. “From that important baseline, we have a very open and honest approach to communication with our employees.”

While such an approach may sound straightforward, in reality it requires a tremendous amount of work to ensure that each of the elements works effectively.

 

For example, because it understands that reward and recognition are key to engagement, the car insurer tries to find as many ways as possible to share stories of outstanding customer service or of people going the extra mile.

 

It also has a comprehensive system of recognising and rewarding achievement in small ways and through big events such as ‘employee of the year’ awards.

“Recognition and reward of achievement and fantastic service is part of everyday life at LV=, from the smallest ‘thank you’ and encouragement via an e-card, through to high-profile winners of our company-wide recognition scheme,” Smith points out.

The idea of reward and recognition is also embedded in senior leaders’ brains through training and development activity. Each year, the firm holds a ‘People Leaders’ Conference’ aimed at developing 450 of them taken from across the company. The goal is to provide them with the tools required to support and motivate their teams.

 

 

The initiative is also backed by a leadership academy, which offers courses ranging from one-day workshops on leadership principles for first-time leaders to Leadership Excellence courses targeted at senior management.

“Enabling our leaders to look outside of LV= is equally important and our recent ‘Connect’ programme allowed senior managers to go behind the scenes in other ‘best-in-class’ organisations to understand best practices in areas such as customer excellence and business culture,” Smith says.

Tower Watson’s recent Global Workforce Study, which warned of “Standstill Britain”, called for employers to make an effort to re-inject confidence and creativity into their workplaces, after economic stagnation had stymied employee innovation and career advancement for many.

 

But LV= has been working with the professional services firm since 2007 to implement its employee surveys and act on the results.

“As well as the basics, like advertising our vacancies internally, we have been actively measuring what we call ‘cross functional moves’ ie people that are transferring from one function to another,” Smith says. “This has been on the increase as we’ve grown and something we have looked to encourage.”

In total, the company provides five in-house leadership programmes, each one of which is sponsored by a member of the executive team. To this end, it works with organisations such as the Ashridge Business School to help it deliver them.

“We have a great many opportunities for our people to progress to the next level in their role, to work on secondment in another part of the business and to invest in themselves through training and development, which is available to them in a variety of ways such as e-learning,” Smith explains.

 

The fact that people are often assigned to projects outside of their immediate role enables them to build stronger networks and new skills, he adds.

Another key contributor to engagement, however, is communication, particularly during turbulent times. Because LV= has tried to hold onto a business culture and ability to move quickly that are more associated with small companies, it aims to ensure that all of its communication activities occur at both a local and national level.

 

 

Examples include chief executive, Mike Rogers, holding “Open Mike” sessions around the country; the People Leaders Conference takes place once a year for the firm’s top 450 leaders and all-employee meetings are usually held twice annually by each business function.

Each of these initiatives is also supported by the firm’s internal magazine and intranet site, to which senior leaders often post blogs.

“We work hard to create an open and honest culture, where ideas are welcomed – in fact they are actively encouraged,” Smith points out. “Questions can be asked of the leadership at any level, even including a regular, anonymous online forum.”

The company endeavours to ensure that the entire workforce understands the strategy and goals of the business as a whole as well as the part that each individual plays within it in order to foster a feeling of ownership.

 

To this end, every employee is informed of exactly how the company is performing each month via a performance tracker. The tracker provides general information, but also, crucially, shows how LV= is matching up to key business targets as they, in turn, determine the level of annual bonus that everyone will receive.

So-called “Viral Change” is another less traditional mechanism that is also employed to communicate change, however. “This is a small set of behaviours spread by a small number of people through their networks of influence to create massive behavioural tipping points, translated into new routines and ‘cultures’,” explains Smith.

 

He continues: “By encouraging people to become ‘Viral Change’ champions, we allow them to change the aspects of the way we work that they feel passionate about, however small or large.”

The company’s “My Ideas” crowdsourcing system likewise provides personnel with a means of suggesting ideas for possible new ways of doing things, before they are put up for review – and often implemented and rewarded.

The idea is that, through its combination of open communication, clear staff development activities and generous reward programme, LV= hopes to continue expanding its business by keeping staff motivated – even if the wider UK economic outlook continues to appear increasingly fragile.