Biggest team build ever required?

Merger of Lloyds TSB & HBOS will require some serious team development

A new superbank

Back in September, Lloyds TSB announced it planned to take over HBOS. Since then the merger has been approved and looks set to complete next month, creating the UK’s first “superbank”.

Lloyds TSB was was created when the Lloyds Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) agreed to merge their operations creating what was, at the time, the second largest bank in the UK. LLoyds TSB currently operates Cheltenham & Gloucester, Scottish Widows, Insurance.co.uk and Intelligent Finance. HBOS, for its part, was created as a result of a merger between Halifax plc and the Bank of Scotland. HBOS operates Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Birmingham Midshires and The AA.

The merger will therefore create a banking giant with around 145,000 staff and 3,000 branches across the UK.  With these sorts of numbers involved – and given the fragmented history of the new superbank - the development of the Lloyds TSB Group (as it will be known) could call for some serious work to bring the various cultures together.

The immediate issue for staff is that the merger highlights areas of overlap across the business, bringing with it the threat of job losses throughout the organisation.

However longer term, as staff from the banks’ branches, call centres, processing centres and the head offices have to begin to work together to make the new superbank a success, the bank’s leaders will have to establish clear criteria for this success and identify how the new corporate culture can be created. This will mean developing staff who can embody this new culture, ensuring that the messages and objectives of the new organisation are communicated, and working with staff at every level to motivate, reward and encourage.