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Colleague case study - Sophia Browne

How has the Bank’s maternity policy helped your career?

I went on Maternity Leave in October 2021 and the bank’s policy is you can take up to 12 months Maternity Leave.

I chose to take the full 12 months on offer as it’s my first child, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from motherhood.

At the time the policy offered six months full pay, followed by three months Statutory Maternity Pay with the last three months being unpaid.

From speaking to other parents, I’ve met in my local area, I feel fortunate that I was able to take so long adjusting to becoming a mother as I know lots of parents who’ve returned to work before they felt “ready”.

The bank offers up to ten paid Keeping in Touch (KIT) days, so in the last three months leading up to my return to work I used these to visit the office; meeting with my team and colleagues to update with what’s changed since I’ve been away.

I’ve also been able to use this time to focus on continuing my personal development plan and have been successful in applying my former manager’s role of Customer Experience Director.

The bank has been flexible in supporting my return to work and I’m now using my annual leave and bank holiday allowance that has accrued to work a phased return to work, supporting me in transitioning back to working full time into this new role. Why did you decide to join the bank? I previously worked at the Financial Ombudsman Service and always felt fulfilled by their values of doing what was right and what felt fair.

It was important to me the next organisation I joined held similar values and the positive impact the bank has in society and to the economy really spoke to my personal values.

From speaking to other parents, I’ve met in my local area, I feel fortunate that I was able to take so long adjusting to becoming a mother as I know lots of parents who’ve returned to work before they felt ‘ready’. - Sophia Browne Customer Experience Director

How have you found hybrid working?

Our customer support teams had never worked from home before so it felt like a real achievement collaborating with our IT teams to ensure our contact centre technology could work.

We received unprecedented volumes and I’m so impressed with what the team were able to achieve during this time, it was a definite shift in team culture at first to ensure we still had that social connection as a team.

We now mix our weeks to have team days in the office so we can continue to maintain our team culture and working from home for some flexibility and work/life balance.

What advice would you give to someone considering the bank?

I joined the bank in December 2018 as Customer Service Manager, in 2020 I was promoted to Senior Customer Experience Manager and have returned to work from Maternity Leave as Customer Experience Director.

I’ve been given excellent opportunities for my personal development, aside from promotions themselves, I’ve grown significantly through the stretch opportunities available.

I’ve also used my learning and development budget to attend external courses and gain industry acknowledged qualifications, so would advocate to any other new starters to make the most of these opportunities.

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