“Board Intelligence has an impressive reputation across all sectors.” ~ Julian Baddeley, Deputy Co Sec
The Challenge — a consistent approach to report writing
As the UK’s largest insurer, Aviva was looking to embed best practice reporting across the organisation and provide their board with industry leading board information.
With 28,000 employees, achieving a consistent approach to report writing was challenging. Aviva’s Group Secretariat wanted to implement a new reporting approach and make it easy for report writers to adopt best practice and prepare papers that focus on what matters.
The Solution — a company wide standard
We introduced Write, our online Reporting Toolkit, to support report writers and create a company-wide standard for board reporting. As part of this we:
- Engaged with each member of Aviva’s Executive Committee to explain the aims of the project and understand their priorities;
- Customised the resources on Write to Aviva’s needs, ensuring that industry and organisation specific prompts were included in the templates. This included developing the CEO’s report to ensure this led the way in the new approach.
- Ran training workshops for 250 report authors to explain the principles underlying the resources and to provide practical guidance on how to prepare a high quality paper.
The Outcome — higher quality board information
As a result of our work, Aviva has reported a step-change in the quality of their board information:
- Papers are shorter, of higher quality and more directly answer the questions on the board’s mind;
- The board has additional comfort that their regulatory and statutory duties are being discharged;
- Report authors and Executive Committee sponsors have saved time due to fewer iterations of papers;
- Report authors have been upskilled and have the confidence to prepare reports that meet Aviva’s exacting standards.
“The face to face training was invaluable and a key part of making ‘Write’ a success.” ~ Julian Baddeley, Deputy Co Sec
Aviva now enjoys papers which provide a framework for strategic discussion in the boardroom, making better use of Board, Executive Committee and report author time. Due to the success of the UK project, the focus now is on expanding Write across three continents to ensure there is a consistent approach to reporting throughout the business.
“Launching ‘Write’ internationally will enable high quality and consistent reports across the business.” ~ Julian Baddeley, Deputy Co Sec
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