ADVERTISING FEATURE
BUSINESS ADVERTISING REVIEW OF THE FEATURE YEAR
STRICTLY SERIOUS by Kevin Gray, Chief Executive of Bath Building Society.
Most Saturday nights in the Gray household in 2022 have experienced disputes over what television programmes should be watched.
My two daughters have repeatedly ganged up against me to demand the watching of Love Island, Eurovision and other various forms of‘ rubbish’. What is worse is that they are now usually aided and abetted by my girlfriend who does not share my sad fascination for history programmes, war films or anything with a Hobbit in it. As we approach the end of 2022, matters have deteriorated further due to the onset of the annual television extravaganza, otherwise known as Strictly Come Dancing. What I find peculiar is that I have three television sets at home and all of these could be on different channels to keep everyone happy. However, the household consensus is that I don’ t know what I’ m missing and that I’ m being a bit weird and unsociable for wanting to lock myself away to watch my‘ boring’ stuff. For the time being, I have capitulated in order to keep the peace in the run up to Christmas. As a result, Anton, sequins and the Argentine Tango are now all as familiar a feature of my Saturday evenings as is takeaway curry.
Putting aside my inability to take charge of the TV remote control, I thought that it may be appropriate to reflect on the high and low points of 2022 as seen through the business lens of Bath Building Society( BBS). Although BBS has had it successes, 2022 has been a rather frustrating year. The Omicron variant of Covid actually resulted in more sickness and colleague absence in 2022 than in either of 2020 and 2021. This occurred at a time when the Society has been engaged on numerous projects aimed at improving productivity and customer experience. The heavy business change workload and our relative shortage of people meant that we
had to restrict our new lending activity during the first half of the year. BBS only seriously went looking for volume new business at the end of Q2. Across the UK, there have been unusually long delays in 2022 between the granting of mortgage offers by banks and building societies and the advancing of loans. These delays were outside of lenders’ control and have been caused in the main by conveyancers and local authorities who have themselves been struggling with Covid backlogs and shortages of staff. The UK average delay peaked at around five months.
These post offer delays have meant that much of the business that the Society took in Q2 / Q3 will not in fact advance until late 2022 or even 2023. This has resulted in an unusual situation where the Society’ s level of new mortgage applications are in line with its budget but where its level of mortgage advances has fallen short of our original expectations. Despite this, the Society will deliver a significant increase in profitability for 2022.
The post Covid world has undoubtedly seen a reduction in the number of people seeking work in the UK. The tight labour market has occurred at a time when BBS has been trying to expand its workforce. The good news was that the Society managed to recruit excellent people but the bad news was that most vacancies took much longer to fill than we had desired. The cost-of-living crisis has meant that pay and benefits are now very important influencers on recruitment and colleague retention. BBS has had to award interim salary increases to certain of its colleagues in order to retain vital skills and experience and thereby reduce risk to
“ Life isn’ t about waiting for the storm to pass... it’ s about learning to dance in the rain.”
the business. The Society also awarded every colleague below Executive level a £ 1,000 award in Q3 to help them with cost-of-living issues over the coming winter. The Society’ s people are its major strategic asset and it is going to have to invest more in them. To this end, BBS is engaging in a major salary benchmarking exercise which aims to maintain its competitiveness as a local employer of choice. The Society has also committed to improve its holiday allowances and its employee pension contributions in 2023.
The Society has introduced several new features to its operations over 2022. These included website improvements such as a comprehensive mortgage affordability calculator and an AI chat bot that can accurately answer questions about our mortgage lending criteria. BBS has also launched a mobile app which offers our customers a modern way of transacting with the Society, and which will be particularly attractive to younger Members. Now to be strictly serious about the economic future. The Bank of England has just communicated that the UK economy will be in recession for almost the next two years. Inflation will remain high over 2023 and interest rates will climb much higher to subdue inflationary pressures. Business failures and unemployment are both set to increase. Property prices are likely to fall and mortgage arrears and repossessions will most possibly( and sadly) rise. In summary, it is undoubtedly going to be a very rough ride over 2023 and 2024. As the storm clouds gather, I am reminded of the phrase‘ Life isn’ t about waiting for the storm to pass …. it’ s about learning to dance in the rain’. To steal a Strictly quote, I hope that we all‘ keep dancing’.
To find out more about Bath Building Society and its offering visit: www. bathbuildingsociety. co. uk
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2022 15