Building a New Culture of Ownership and Performance in Debt Collection
THE CHALLENGE
After the acquisition of a debt collection company, Collectius wanted to make the culture of the company evolve. The objective was to bring the “debt collector” to leave the traditional - and quite violent - way to collect money to a more “financial advisor for the debtors and poor people” way of collecting money, more caring and human. Collectius wanted to
- Jumpstart the culture shift
- Help people connect better, amongst staff and with client
- Support their staff in finding their inner creativity an “try new things” mindset
THE OUTCOME
- Increase of sense of belonging amongst its team by 52%
- Increase of perception of creativity amongst its team: 92%
- Increase of productivity amongst its team: 32%
- Increase of efficiency amongst its team: 29%
– 70 people from the Kuala Lumpur team collectively created this 18 feet long mural as the vision of their company.
THE STORY
Collectius is a restructuring partner to banks and financial institutions in Asia with operations in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Its business is to purchase portfolios of non-performing consumer loans and recover them by supporting its customers to become debt free using the ''Collectius way of collection.'' The company, at the difference of many traditional debt collection companies in Asia, is offering a customer-centric approach.
The staff we met at Collectius Malaysia was the merge between several companies and new team members. There were big changes in the company, both in culture and operations and customer service and the staff.
The founding team and the new Head of Operations of Malaysia, were leading the evolution of the business towards more profit and sustainability….yet they knew their staff will be the key of such evolution. They wanted to turn your people into a key resource to build the future of the business.
The founding has been through a recent envisioning and culture alignment process…but was struggling to expand this vision and “new way of collecting” to the entire team; already fragilized by a recent reorganisation.
After interviewing the managing team and a couple of staff, we decided to foster the culture shift and alignment based on 4 pillars:
Training Managers and outstanding staff to be part of our team, by equipping them and empowering them to lead the workshops and activities with us
Celebrating existing success stories, and original thinking of the collaborators to show them the staff was already on the way
Reinforcing positive vision of their professional future by clarifying what benefits they will now access by belonging now to an international company in expansion.
Last but not least, we create a journey to help the staff understand who they were today and who they wanted to become as individuals and as a team. We supported them in showcasing this vision in the format of a collective painting, that would welcome any new partners, investors and clients at their office.
The team was extremely happy with the experience. They really felt that the management was caring for them and investing in their growth.
The part that was for us the most significant was not just the increase in sense of belonging and productivity you can see as the outcome of this mission. What we love the most was the the staff felt they were becoming a stable and strong community of creative, empathetic leaders, capable of taking decision and helping their clients restructure their debt in new and more impactful ways.
The work we did with Colectius Malaysia created so much value for the team that we got the privilege to work again with the Singapore office and the Philippines office as well as for their regional leadership training seminar.
