Standard Chartered: identifying your talent bank

The Standard Chartered Bank has a history in Hong Kong stretching back to 1859 and is currently one of the SAR’s three note-issuing banks. Employing 60,000 people in 1,400 offices worldwide, with 5,000 in Hong Kong alone, the bank embraces a Diversity and Inclusion policy that encourages staff to embrace their differences and live the values espoused by the bank. Working for Standard Chartered is not only a job, but also an experience in personal development. At the cornerstone of the bank’s talent management strategy are the leaders, who come down specifically to talk to staff at every level concerning performance and personal development in order to best utilise the talent within the organisation.

Fern Ngai has played a pivotal role in ensuring that talent within the organisation is motivated, focused and ready to handle the challenges of the market. Originally from an IT background, she took up the role of Head of HR for Standard Chartered, before moving into corporate governance within the organisation. HR Magazine interviewd Ngai while she was Head of HR and asked her to share HR practices within Standard Chartered Bank including tools that enable line managers and employees to effectively ‘self-service’ their HR requirements. She explained that HR management systems adopted by the bank automatically generate metrics such as attrition rates, which can then be used as yardsticks by HR and business management to identify issues and weaker areas of performance at numerous levels within the organisation. This knowledge then facilitates the implementation of both proactive and reactive measures at an early stage to maximise results. These high-tech HR solutions, coupled with the establishment of a shared service centre in India, which takes care of the transactional aspects of HR management, have empowered the bank’s HR Department to move forward rapidly, enabling them to focus on more high value-added engagement type activities.

In another move forward, Standard Chartered is now focusing on further strengthening and increasing its leadership capability in order to fulfil organisational objectives and aspirations. To achieve this goal, Ngai and her HR team are instrumental in implementing and monitoring the accelerated development of talent within the bank with the aim of turning 'managers' into 'great managers'. These great managers, who are true leaders like Ngai, possess key values and attributes that ultimately drive the business forward towards, and beyond, its next stage of evolution. Standard Chartered has seen strong, organic growth in the past few years, and maintaining the momentum of business growth requires the right people. To this end, Standard Chartered actively seeks talent with the right capabilities and values—team members who are creative, responsive, international, courageous and trustworthy. All staff have these values enshrined in them right from the outset of their careers with the Bank. Moreover, with senior management taking ownership of talent development by modelling and championing the behaviour they want to elicit in their staff, such values have become even more deeply engrained throughout the organisation internationally.

To achieve these key HR objectives, Ngai and her team ensure that staff attraction, retention, engagement and development are integrated into a holistic approach for talent management, aligned with the current and future needs of the business. One of the most critical factors at the heart of Ngai’s work ethic is talent development. This is essential in view of the current competitive job market within Hong Kong and shes stated, “Failing to develop your talent means you are not engaging your talent, which means you face the possibility of losing them”. Ngai also believes that a strong and compelling employee value proposition must be in place in order to attract quality new talent to the bank.

One way to achieve this is to develop holistic, synergistic management performance profiles for each high potential employee. These contain information such as personal preferences, strengths, track record and even whether staff members are geographically or functionally mobile, which helps managers place people where they can be best utilised. Aligning the strengths and preferences of individuals with positions that best exploit these creates a synergy that stems from staff being happier and more willing and able to contribute which, in turn, results in increased customer satisfaction and better business and financial results.

The leadership at the bank adopts numerous strategies for motivating staff and keeping them happy—some can be as simple as improving the pantry facilities to introducing 5-day paternity and adoption leave. But without the free upward communication that comes from leaders 'doing the rounds' and actively engaging their team members, things like this might never be discovered. The leadership team at Standard Chartered adopts an open and transparent management approach, in which they are accessible to their staff. This translates into members of the Executive Committee practising what they preach and 'doing the rounds'. Despite already frantically hectic schedules, EXCO members come down from the hierarchy and into the heart of the organisation to understand the nuts and bolts of the operations, and also to find out what makes their staff tick. They also share their career experiences through leadership seminars. This practice of active employee engagement facilitates improvements in employee satisfaction and engagement, which is gauged quantitatively through an annual engagement survey, in which all line managers with over four staff receive an individual engagement scorecard.

Leaders at Standard Chartered are expected to be talent scouts in order to help create a strong talent pipeline by identifying future leaders as early as possible in their careers, and mentoring them to develop them into great managers and leaders. Ngai realises the importance of managers being willing to take a risk when identifying new talent, especially at lower levels. Standard Chartered’s talent pipeline extends to include a university graduate programme that has created strategic alliances between the bank and many local universities including Hong Kong University, University of Science & Technology, and Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as many international universities, including those in mainland China. The bank also recognises that the “Baby Boomer” mindset present in many of the bank’s current leaders cannot simply be transposed onto the younger generation who have a different mindset. This part of talent development within the organisation is where building on existing strengths, so that staff are able to make a bigger contribution towards the success of the business, comes heavily into play.

In addition to this strengths-based philosophy advocated by Ngai, talent mentors within the Bank also engage in four types of regular 'Conversations that Count' with their staff, namely performance, learn and develop, career development and engagement conversations. Underpinning the development of staff members are the ‘learn and develop’ conversations that set agreed development programmes with employees for the year ahead which are subsequently analysed upon completion with respect to performance. A performance conversation is an opportunity for employees to understand how they are doing in their role, to get clarity on their objectives for the rest of the year, and to recognise how their learning and development can help them to contribute more. Ngai places great importance on setting clear guidelines as to what is expected of employees in order to ensure that they are fully engaged in their roles. With this in mind, the engagement conversations with staff, focus on improving engagement and staff motivation in order to achieve better customer service and financial results, as well as allowing staff to build their career within the bank and so enhance retention of talent. These regular, planned conversations with every team member then lead to career development conversations that allow staff to explore options open to them within the bank and to make informed decisions about furthering their career.

Standard Chartered is again looking to the future, and a key factor that separates it from its competitors within the top banks in Hong Kong is its highly successful and progressive approach to talent management and delivering great results.