How TD turned 100,000 employee ideas into 10,000 actions 

Whether it’s to help plan their financial goals or help protect against identity theft or fraud, Patricia Curtis thought her clients should have an easier way to access their credit scores and reports.

Curtis, a Personal Banking Associate at TD, proposed making credit scores available on the TD app, for free. Working with TransUnion, a consumer credit reporting agency, TD implemented Curtis’ idea. 

“Our colleagues are interacting with our clients on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis, and we need their insights.”

Josh Death, TD

Her idea gave over 500,000 clients a tool that can help them make more informed financial decisions.

TD clients can now check their credit scores, which are updated weekly by TransUnion, on the TD app as often as they’d like, compare them to the national average and use a simulator on the app to determine how their future financial decisions could impact their credit scores. 

That kind of opportunity is what the TD iD8 program was built to capture. Launched in 2019, the internal program was created to give TD colleagues a clear path to identify the challenges that clients and colleagues are facing and propose solutions. Since its introduction, more than 100,000 ideas have been submitted, and over 10,000 have been implemented. 

This approach is fostered as part of TD Invent, the strategic umbrella effort aimed at powering purposeful innovation across the bank. Through programs like iD8, TD Invent encourages all TD colleagues to help transform the bank by challenging the status quo, anticipating future needs, and innovating with purpose.

According to Josh Death, Vice President of Intellectual Property and Ideation at TD, it’s a demonstration that the best innovation happens when everyone contributes.

“This program is an acknowledgement that we don’t have all the answers sitting in head office,” Death said. “Our colleagues are interacting with our clients on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis, and we need their insights.”

Innovation, decentralized

Client-facing colleagues are often closest to the points of friction, and iD8 gives them a direct channel to share their ideas on how it might be possible to do something better, simpler and faster. 

Some ideas they introduce improve how clients interact with services. Others address internal inefficiencies or make simple adjustments that save time and effort.

“We really want to encourage everyone in the organization to feel empowered to innovate with purpose,” said Imran Khan, Head Of Innovation And Design at TD.

The iD8 program was established to create a standardized approach to ideation. TD knew its employees had valuable insights, but their ideas often stayed siloed and fixes were left to individual teams. 

The TD Invent approach empowers colleagues to be curious, explore using new technologies to solve real-world problems, share their unique ideas, and see them through until they’re implemented. 

By doing so, the bank generates more curiosity, creative thinking and ideas that are helping to shape the future of banking at TD. 

iD8 is an example of how this mindset has flourished across the bank. Ideas are submitted by “iD8rs,” colleagues from every corner of TD. The ideas are reviewed by a network of ‘committed champions’ from across TD who are trained to evaluate potential, prioritize what matters, and identify solutions worth pursuing.

“They’re the connectors,” said Death. “They’re the ones that receive the ideas, triage the ideas, and push the ideas forward.”

Ideas that meet the right criteria are passed to the appropriate business line. Colleagues are not required to lead development, but many stay close to the work and often see the impact in their own day-to-day work.

“This is side-of-the-desk for most people,” Death said. “They want to flex their innovation muscle and this is the program by which they can do that.”

Participation is voluntary, and TD tracks contributions, recognizes impact, and celebrates outcomes. Colleagues whose ideas are implemented can earn milestone badges and each year, the company brings top contributors together to celebrate their achievements and share their impact.

Designing from lived experience

The work spans from minor policy changes to reshaped digital products, redesigned forms, and streamlined approvals. What connects them, according to Khan, is a focus on lived experience.

“We believe that human-centred design is foundational to innovation,” Khan said. “It’s really about understanding and unearthing true human needs.”

Some ideas take minutes to implement. Others require a deeper look at how people interact with the bank’s services, including what they’re expecting, where they get stuck and how to make the experience more intuitive.

TD develops those new ideas with human-centred design at the forefront. Teams work directly with colleagues or clients to clarify the need, test potential fixes, and refine based on feedback.

Human-centered innovation is another staple of TD Invent. Colleagues aren’t just encouraged to find smarter and faster solutions, but those that are more human. Whenever TD innovates, humans and their needs are always kept at the centre of the process, Khan said. 

“We want to make sure that we understand the underlying human need,” Khan added.

Not every solution involves a major rebuild. One submission proposed adding a line to the letter sent with replacement debit cards, explaining that the PIN hadn’t changed. That simple addition led to a sharp drop in call volume, freeing up time for both clients and frontline teams.

Other ideas are rooted in personal experience. Death recalled one idea focused on improving how estates are managed, a process he had recently gone through after his father passed away.

Teresa Vilone-Dinatale, who manages high net worth estate services at TD, saw an opportunity to reduce paperwork during one of the most difficult moments in a client’s life. 

By consolidating two documents used to waive probate and estate services, she cut the processing time from an hour to just 25 minutes. The change now supports 23,000 clients a year and has freed up 10,000 hours of capacity across TD.

“In addition to grieving, the process itself was also challenging,” Death said of his own experience managing his father’s estate. “When I heard about the solution and what was proposed and that it was going to be implemented, I thought, ‘That’s a really good idea.’”

Everyone gets a voice

More recently, TD introduced challenge-driven innovation across the organization. In this model, business units identify a specific problem they want to help solve and issue a challenge to the broader employee base via the iD8 platform. 

Colleagues from anywhere in TD can then propose solutions, and leadership can tap into the same network of innovators to crowdsource solutions to specific business problems. 

Death said this top-down model is only about 18 months old but has already gained traction. 

“We’re getting really great quality ideas,” he added. 

Khan believes iD8 reflects how TD approaches problem solving. Instead of reserving innovation for specialized teams, the program gives employees at all levels a direct channel to flag friction, propose solutions and test ideas, while recognizing that some of the best ones come from the people closest to the issue.

“I think there’s often a misconception that you can’t innovate in a heavily regulated environment,” Khan said. “You have to be respectful of the ground rules of the industry that you’re in, but we believe very strongly that we can still innovate in that environment.”

In Khan’s view, iD8 is designed to support a culture where initiative and observation are expected, not only from senior teams, but all colleagues.

“Our colleagues love the fact that, no matter where they sit in the organization, iD8 gives them a voice,” he said. “Their ideas are valued.”

PRESENTED BY

TD Invent is the strategic umbrella effort to power purposeful innovation at TD. For more information, visit the TD Stories page or learn more about the bank’s AI research and development centre, Layer 6.

All photos provided by TD.