‘The New UBA…’ I keep hearing the phrase but what does it actually mean? It’s safe to say it means something
different to each of us and we all have our own vision of where the bank is heading.
14 •
The Lion King
• July - September 2016
all we can wear JEANS. It has become
a more attractive environment to work
in.
The Melting Pot is also a welcome
change. New caterers, new chairs,
new branding. The cafeteria has
become a pleasant place for staff to
hang out. I went to have lunch there
the other day and I couldn’t help
thinking ‘Is this the same cafeteria?’
There was music playing (Future for
that matter). They were serving amala
with gbegiri and ewedu (which is
very fashionable now oh, thanks to
instagram) and the place was full! It’s
great to have an escape for just a
short while to relax your mind and just
enjoy lunch with your co-workers and
‘gist’ (and we youngsters love to gist).
Compared to the way people used
to avoid the cafeteria like the plague,
definitely a step in the right direction
(for us young people to love it even
more, we would need happy hour
some evenings and UBA would be the
coolest bank *ahem*).
Everyone knows social media and the
digital space in general is the best way
to position your brand as youthful and
modern. Our social media pages are
churning out fun content every day,
from quizzes to style tips and lifestyle
content. It’s great to steer away from
the usual direction of using the social
media pages to only handle customer
complaints and put out banking
information. While those aspects are
important, it’s also important to give
our followers something fun to look at
on our pages every once in a while,
all the cool kids do it (by cool kids I
mean companies) so why shouldn’t
we? REDTV is another way UBA is
becoming more modern, it’s exciting
UBA’S COOL INDEX
ON THE RISE
BY FUNLOLA OBE
T
o me ‘the new UBA’ signifies that
the bank is heading in a more
youthful direction and becoming
more modern. We’ve all heard it,
‘UBA is a classic bank’, ’UBA is a first-
generation bank’ (Which sounds like
code for ‘UBA is an oldpeople’s bank’!)
etc. and while that isn’t necessarily a
bad thing, one of the key ingredients
for success is the ability to adapt
to change. The world is constantly
changing and if you can’t adapt then
you are sure to fail. The youth are
taking over (yes, they are). I recently
read that by 2020, millennials will
make up a majority of the workforce.
In-fact in some companies like Price
Waterhouse Cooper, it is estimated
that by next year, 90% of their work
force will comprise of millennials. If
that isn’t a clear sign that the youth
are taking over, I don’t know what
is. Employers all over the world, large
and small, are now making changes in
order to attract the younger workforce.
UBA is definitely one of them and we
are doing this in a number of ways.
The dress-code is the biggest and
most exciting change that has
happened at UBA in recent times.
Not many people like to be confined
to drab colours like blue, black, grey
and brown every day, looking forward
to the weekend to be able to inject
some colour into your wardrobe and
your life. So it was great to get a
new dress code along with the new
GMD. We’re now allowed to wear red,
green and blue in different shades
(well the women are, sorry to all the
men), mix and match your blazers and
your skirts or trousers, wear open toed
sandals in different colours (I think this
was the best part of it for me, my toes
have stopped suffering) and most of
COVER
| UBA’S COOL INDEX ON THE RISE
