Specialist commercial lender, Unity Trust Bank, is celebrating another year of positive recognition from its employees in the 2020 Banking Standards Board (BSB) report.

In its fifth annual survey, more than 73,000 employees across 31 UK banks and building societies responded to the BSB’s official assessment, which provides a snapshot of workplace culture within the banking industry.

Unity Trust Bank, which was established with the purpose to help create a better society, improved its ranking on the BSB’s Assessment Framework for Reliability and Shared Purpose. When asked to describe Unity, 95% of employees across the organisation felt that its purpose and values were meaningful to them, with “ethical” “collaborative” and “inclusive” recorded as the most commonly used terms.

Furthermore, 98% of employees said they were proud of how Unity Trust Bank had helped its customers and clients throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with 85% feeling that their health and wellbeing had been supported during the crisis.

The impact of the pandemic also created resilience within the workforce, who continued to deliver a high level of customer service despite having to quickly adapt to new ways of working. 93% of employees reported that they had seen their colleagues go the extra mile to meet the needs of customers – an increase from 89% in 2019.

Margaret Willis, CEO of Unity Trust Bank, said: “We joined the BSB in 2016, to demonstrate Unity’s commitment to help raise standards within the industry. Positive culture derives from the top and we carefully analyse BSB’s results each year to identify ways in which we can improve as an organisation.

“We are extremely proud our colleagues’ resilience and how they have supported each other throughout the last 12 months – it is a real testament to our culture and what we stand for as a business.

“As a purpose-led organisation, we work to instil a sense of genuine inclusivity for employees, from our tailored learning and development opportunities, support for professional qualifications, volunteering and fundraising programmes, to employee share schemes which align the interests of our people with those of the bank.

“Our customers trust us to deliver a service that supports their commitment to deliver positive and lasting change, and I’m proud that our employees share a common purpose to drive this forward.”