Nat West employs some of the most high-achieving individuals in the global banking sector. The company is serious about training and retaining its star players.

Its career development programme is one of the best in the business and it wanted to keep it fresh with new, relevant, effective and inventive elements.

Nat West invited several training and development companies to tender for the opportunity to enhance its already successful internal training and talent retention programme. The bank was specifically looking for a partner to deliver confidence-building and motivation techniques in an effective and unique way.

We devised a bespoke programme of sessions designed to build participants’ emotional intelligence, using humour as a leadership mind-set.

We recognise that people learn more effectively in an emotive state. They are more likely to retain information, remember it and recall it if the learning experience is positive.

This theory is backed by rigorous scientific evidence and we used this knowledge in the programme we developed. We employed techniques of stand-up comedy and improvisation to engage participants and help them enhance confidence and presentation skills. The programme was delivered in a series of sessions over a two-year period.

There was a higher rate of promotion within the group which undertook the training, along with a higher rate of staff who made lateral movements within the organisation, rather than leave it.