Deutsche's new mission to make its bankers feel HAPPY

There have been intimations of disgruntlement at Deutsche Bank. Ever since the bank withheld 2016 performance bonuses for mid-ranking and senior staff, people there have been a bit peevish. They have been leaving. Deutsche has been trying to persuade them to stay with offers of more money, bigger job titles and a promise that the "fun" is coming back.  

Now, it seems that Deutsche may be trying a different approach. Employees at the bank in London say Deutsche has begun plastering the office with posters extolling them to feel all warm and fuzzy about the work they do there.

"The offices, lifts, turnstiles, lobby are plastered with adverts urging us to share the positive contributions we've been making," says one employee. "The Winchester House lobby [of DB's London office] has got a massive hashtag shaped screen saying '#PositiveImpact' which directs us to an internal campaign page."

The idea is that DB bankers will go to the bank's internal page and add details of the good work they've been doing. A Deutsche Bank spokesman said, "Our new brand campaign focuses on how employees at Deutsche Bank are supporting their clients every day and are striving to deliver a positive impact to society in many ways.” Initially the campaign is for internal eyes only, but from autumn details of the positivity will be shared externally.

Handelsblatt reported last week that the new "#PositiveImpact" brand message is replacing the old "Passion to Perform" tagline. When translated into German, "Passion to Perform," was unfortunately susceptible of transformation into, "Performance that will make you suffer."

So far so good, except that some Deutsche Bankers see something else afoot in the new campaign. DB will soon conduct its annual employee satisfaction survey, the results to which will be released around July. Last year, the results were miserable, with fewer than 50% of people saying they felt proud to work there. By focusing on all the positive social improvements and client support undertaken by its employees, DB may be hoping to increase their enthusiasm while the survey's taking place. And why not? It's the kind of thing that worked for PWC.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

Photo credit: Deutsche Bank Annual Media Conference / Jahresmedienkonferenz 2017 by Deutsche Bank is licensed under CC BY 2.0.