Nationwide Building Society holds annual awards to celebrate its top 300 employees. The challenge is that these employees are dispersed across the country in different teams and jobs. To bring this diverse group together, Nationwide created an exclusive digital app for award attendees. The app allowed employees to get to know each other before the event, share event information, and compete for prizes to generate excitement about the event and align with its theme. The app was very successful, with over 95% of users rating it excellent and high levels of engagement between attendees ahead of the celebration event.

1. CLOSING THE GAP
Bringing together award winning
employees
Kate Shaw,
Nationwide

2. Bringing award
winning
employees
together
Kate Shaw
Internal Communication
Manager

3. Nationwide Building Society
The world’s largest building society…
• The UK’s second largest mortgage
provider
• One of the largest savings providers
• Major provider of current accounts,
credit cards and personal loans
• 15 million customers and members –
no shareholders
• Over 700 branches across the UK
• Around 18,000 employees and a
head office in Swindon

4. PRIDE
The way we do things…
• Putting Members First
• Rewarding Membership
• Inspiring Trust
• Doing the right thing
• Excelling at Service
PRIDE drives our employee recognition
– and once a year, we celebrate our true
PRIDE superstars

5. Nationwide’s Annual Awards
Celebrating the achievements of our
top 300 employees
The challenge?
• Attendees are based all across
the country
• They work in different teams,
buildings, with different people
• They are different grades and do
very different jobs
How can we bring this diverse group
of people together to make their
whole experience AMAZING?

6. Creating a digital connection
Our solution…
An exclusive,
interactive digital
app for all award event attendees

7. Creating a digital connection
We created an app that:
• Allowed attendees to get to know
each other before the big day
• Shared key event information
• Made people feel special as it
was created just for them
• Created a sense of excitement
about the event
• Let employees compete against
each other for prizes
• Totally aligned to the event
theme
• Had a structured comms and
engagement plan to make sure it
was successful

8. The App in action…

9. And Exco got involved…

10. So what…
95% rated the app as ‘excellent’
We had 258 active users (out of
300)
• 796 photos were posted
• 969 comments
• 1,232 status updates
• 4,274 likes
• 50,000 visits
And it definitely fulfilled our
objectives to bring the finalists
together ‘digitally’ in advance of
such a special event

11. Summary
• Be clear on the purpose
• Make it relevant to the audience
• Have a clear and structured
engagement plan
• Find the hook – why should
people use it?
• Develop any new channel with
the future in mind