How Coventry Building Society stays competitive with its award-winning Data Academy

About Coventry Building Society

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Website: https://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/

Employees: 3000

Industry: Financial Services

Revenue: £792.3 million

Learners: 200 (January 2025)

At the end of 2023, Coventry Building Society embarked on a bold journey to embed data literacy across its entire organisation. With an ambitious goal of reshaping how its 3000 employees engage with data, the executive team recognised that data transformation is a people-first challenge, not just a technical one.

Through a structured change management strategy, leadership buy-in, and a human-centred learning experience, Coventry Building Society achieved exceptional learner engagement, record-breaking completion rates, and industry recognition as a leader in financial data literacy.

Coventry Building Society won the DataIQ 2024 Award for 'Best Data Academy or Skills Programme', setting a new benchmark for how financial institutions can scale data-driven decision-making.

The challenge

Coventry Building Society has invested heavily in becoming a digitally empowered organisation. With more apps and technology, comes more data to manage and dive into. As a very people-focused business, they knew that bringing their teams on this journey is key, so they feel confident to step into these changes and make the most out of the technology.

Coventry Building Society’s ambition is to become the digital-first building society of the future. However, fragmented data practices, siloed decision-making, and a lack of confidence in data usage were slowing its transformation.

• A need for data enablement: Key teams like Commercial, Finance, Risk, and Customer Service teams all engage with vital data. Yet there was a recognition that employees needed more support to truly empower them to gain the most value from it.
• Driving technology ROI: Coventry Building Society has been on a journey of growing their modern digital and data ecosystem. This meant that people needed to be brought on board too, to get them comfortable using new tools and engaging with upgraded ways of working.
• Leadership buy-in was critical: Coventry Building Society needed a cultural shift, not just a training programme. Without clear advocacy, a traditional self-service learning approach would have seen lower adoption and a more limited impact.
• Staying compliant and competitive: As a financial institution, delivering top-tier governance, data accuracy, transparency, and compliant reporting are non-negotiables. This goes hand in hand with on-going upskilling of their workforce.

Coventry Building Society's leadership understood that merely offering a training programme wasn’t going to cut it. They needed a structured, change-first approach that would embed data literacy into decision-making at every level of the business.

"We wanted to break down the barriers that made data feel distant or intimidating. It should be something that's helpful and empowering for our teams to deliver the best products and services to our customers. We don't only want them to consume data, but to question it, challenge assumptions and make decisions with more confidence." Kate Jones, Head of Data Product and Strategy

The solution

A change management-first approach to Data Literacy

Coventry Building Society partnered with the Data Literacy Academy to design a programme that was built for business impact, leadership engagement, and behavioural change.

The Data team and L&D team aligned seamlessly to make sure the approach was right for Coventry Building Society’s approach. Kate Jones, Head of Data Product and Strategy, and Lamia Brunt, Talent Development Advisor, were key drivers of the programme, building excitement months before a single class went live.

They knew that instead of rolling out training first and hoping for adoption, leveraging our change management-first strategy rooted in the ADKAR Model (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) would yield the highest success.

"We realised early on that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach wouldn’t work. That’s why we built custom personas to map how employees engage with data in different ways in their day-to-day roles. Instead of generic training, employees could see real examples of how data applies to their work, making it instantly relevant. This way, people don’t just learn for the sake of learning, they see how it makes them better at their jobs." Lamia Brunt, Talent Development Advisor

Here is how each stage enabled a successful programme roll-out:

Awareness: Positioning Data Literacy as a business imperative

• Coventry Building Society embedded data literacy into its core business strategy, aligning it with its North Star goals. These goals are: investing in people, driving innovation and ensuring regulatory excellence.

Internal champions were identified in each function to advocate for the programme. This helped spread enthusiasm across various teams, trickling down awareness.

Desire: Engaging leaders and influencers first

• Executive briefings revealed that leaders across Coventry Building Society had different pain points with data:
  
  
  
  • Commercial teams struggled with fragmented data and poor visualisation.
  • Customer Service wanted data to empower, not control, employees.
  • Finance and Risk needed stronger governance, standardisation, and reporting.

Our teams worked closely together to create tailored learning content to align with business needs, ensuring every function could see direct value. Customised class content leads to higher engagement.

Knowledge: Designing a cohort-based, high-engagement learning model

Personalised learning pathways included essential modules like:

• Foundations of Data (100% completion rate).
• Storytelling with Data (91%-95% completion rate).
• Self-Serve Analytics & Power BI Training (tailored for different levels of expertise).

Learning was spaced out to allow for seamless integration with everyone's day jobs. Classes were blended with real business use cases, and reinforced through peer discussions and internal knowledge sharing.

Ability: Measuring impact through application & behaviour change

Course completions were only the starting point when it came to measuring success. The main objective was tracking whether learners were applying their knowledge in real business scenarios.

• The goal of 50% of learners providing tangible examples of time/money saved through data-driven decision-making.
• Corporate Services reduced data oversharing and improved decision-maker communication.
• Finance improved financial data reconciliation through better governance.

Reinforcement: Creating a data-driven culture that sustains itself

• The internal Data Academy community grew from 4 employees to hundreds within 3 months.
• 30% of all employees requested participation in the pilot cohort, showing a high organic demand for learning.
• Coventry Building Society now requires change management execution for every new cohort, ensuring continued leadership support and alignment with business priorities.
• As foundations are spread across the organisation, new use cases will get noted, tracked and contribute to the ROI of the wider programme.

The Results

Industry-leading engagement, business impact and award recognition

"Our teams sit at the intersection of technology, risk, and business transformation, so ensuring that data literacy wasn’t just about learning concepts, but about applying them to real scenarios, was crucial. We now have employees who feel empowered to challenge assumptions, ask the right questions, and use data to drive tangible outcomes. That shift is invaluable." Ian Black, Head of Practices - CIDO

Coventry Building Society's Data Literacy programme fundamentally changed how employees use data to drive business decisions.

Right from the start, 98% of learners completed their Learning Needs Analysis, proving that completion rate is a major industry outlier, proving that employees were highly engaged before even starting formal training.

Their certification completion rates outshine any industry learning benchmarks, revealing how a structured build-up ahead of education leads to retention throughout the 8-month course.

Data for Business completion rate: 91.25%

Data for Business Pro completion rate: 83.2%

Feedback from learners has been overwhelmingly positive, with the following results being shared:

"I’ve adapted the way I address conversations with data teams and the way I interpret data/not starting with an assumption."
"I can now create my own reports instead of relying on my colleagues."
"I’m starting to see data as a decision-making tool, not something to be frightened of."

These outcomes position Coventry Building Society as a best-in-class financial services organisation for data literacy transformation. In October 2024, DataIQ took notice as well and awarded them for the 'Best Data Academy or Skills Programme'.

The second cohort is well underway to starting their learning journey, and as our partnership progresses more impact will be added to the list.

Takeaways for other financial institutions

Coventry Building Society's journey offers valuable takeaways for other finance and banking leaders looking to embed data literacy at scale:

Data Literacy is not just an L&D initiative. It’s a cultural shift.

Coventry Building Society succeeded because leadership was fully invested in making data-driven decision-making a core business capability, not just a compliance exercise.

A Change Management approach ensures long-term success

The organisation applied ADKAR principles before launching training, leading to higher engagement and real business impact.

Tailoring learning to business needs drives application & ROI

Commercial, Finance, Risk, and Customer Service each had different data challenges. Coventry Building Society designed the academy to solve real problems, not just teach concepts.

Measuring business impact is key, not just vanity metrics

Coventry Building Society tracks real-world applications, ensuring data literacy translated into measurable business improvements.

Want to build a world-class Data Literacy programme like Coventry Building Society?

Get in touch today to learn how we can help your organisation embed data-driven decision-making at scale.

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