Standard Chartered Bank is committed to building a sustainable business over the long term that is trusted worldwide for upholding high standards of corporate governance, social responsibility, environmental protection and employee diversity.

 

In terms of corporate governance, Standard Chartered operates with the highest levels of regulatory compliance through an effective organizational management structure, productive and profitable business operation and a strong, liquid balance sheet.

 

In terms of social responsibility and environmental protection, Standard Chartered’s goal is to contribute to the communities in which we operate. This is demonstrated not only through community activities such as Seeing is Believing, but also in the way that we do our banking business.

 

We strongly believe in the crucial role of human resources in achieving sustainable development. We are focusing on nurturing our people and giving them constant and continued training after joining the bank. Employees from each and every department of the bank are well-trained before and during their time working with us. We have professionals from within the Standard Chartered as well as external trainers who can help develop the huge potential of our talented, motivated and ambitious workforce.

 

At Standard Chartered Bank, we believe that talented, satisfied and motivated people are critical to ensuring our business grows to its full potential. Continuing to build employee engagement remains one of Standard Chartered Bank’s key business priorities during challenging and uncertain times for the financial services industry. We survey our employee engagement annually, with consistently high employee participation rates of around 95 per cent. It is clear to us that highly engaged employees are more productive in their roles, which clearly results in improved business performance. We focus on supporting managers to build and maintain individual and team performance through high engagement. We engage our employees through a variety of means, including: developing their skills, having a clear set of values by which we operate our business, undertaking worthwhile community activities and having an objective appraisal system that recognises achievement and encourages development.

 

Our success is made possible by our people and the broad range of talents that they bring to the bank.

 

First, companies can only succeed in the long-term if they recruit and motivate people who are able to respond to and shape the challenges of the future. These are the individuals with the capacity to create competitive advantages from the opportunities presented by changing markets, with the desire to learn from customers, suppliers and colleagues, and who possess the ability to build and influence long lasting and effective partnerships. I believe most organisations in Vietnam have realized the importance of this. The result is an increased focus on ensuring an effective recruitment process.

 

Many companies nowadays either invest in their own effective in-house recruitment team, or outsource their recruitment process to third party head-hunting companies.

 

Second, all companies should recognize that employees are motivated by a complex mix of factors. These include financial rewards and promotion and peer recognition. But, at least as importantly, they also include the values promoted by the business, not only in community activities, but through tangible social responsibility in the way they do business. A key part of how engaged staff are is the degree to which they can be proud of what their employer’s business does, as well as how it does it. Many companies still focus mainly on the financial aspects of employee engagement and pay little attention to the other motivating elements. This remains a challenge, not only for the HR manager/director, but also the top management team.

 

The last and the most important issue is that companies must continually enhance their workforces’ skills to respond to the emerging demands of customers, investors and society as a whole – requirements that change with the ways that people live and work. The challenge for managers is to clarify the competencies required to deliver the company’s strategy, as well as to cope with changing competitive circumstances. Success will depend on identifying the most effective means of building these competencies, whether through formal training programmes, mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, or involvement in community programmes. Very few companies are at this level of HR management which requires a planned strategy and a holistic approach for developing sustainable HR.

 

We’re rapidly growing as a business, and without the right people we will not achieve our potential. Human Resources play a critical role in that growth by advising, equipping and helping the business to shape the future. Working closely with line managers, HR attracts, nurtures and enables our talented people to create sustained high performance through engagement, structured learning and mentoring.

 

At Standard Chartered, HR development strategies focus on 3 main stages: hire good quality candidates, create an effective and supportive working environment which encourages personal development, and recognize employees for their performance through rewards based on objective performance appraisals.

 

The main objectives of these strategies are to create a high quality work force to provide the best products and service to customers. They should be a united team, committed to grow with the company over the long term, and to contribute the development of the business and the Vietnamese economy. 

 

In 2010, we launched our brand promise “Here for good.” This captures who we are, what we stand for and what makes us different from our competitors. We are committed to educating our employees in order to bring our brand promise to life in everything we do. Through “Here for good,” we have renewed our focus on making our culture and values a continued source of competitive advantage.

 

Besides being committed to attracting the highest calibre of people and to provide them opportunities to grow and do more of what they do best, we also aim to create a working environment that respects our employees as individuals and offers opportunities for them to develop, both personally and professionally. One of our priorities is to help people work effectively with one another across our different markets, for example on multi-cultural project teams or while working overseas.

 

Recently we have launched the “8 Minute Serve Pledge” in all of our branches in Vietnam. The service pledge starts from the moment a customer enters the branch and receives their queue ticket until the customer is called for serving. The queuing system automatically tracks the duration of waiting time and alerts the tellers if the 8-minute pledge is not met. This provides us an opportunity to enhance our employees’ value in terms of being more responsible with customers, and to provide them with our best service. During the launch of this campaign, our employees did their best and the record shows that the average time for each customer to be served was only 2.5 minutes, instead of the set limit of 8 minutes. This better equips our employees with skills that would help us to be more responsible to our customers, thus enhancing our staff’s ability and value.

 

We also have programs that create positive environment for employees such as A Green Living Day, Seeing is Believing, Blood Donation Events, etc. where a group of employees volunteer to do meaningful charity work together. This gradually creates stronger bonding and teamwork among employees and ultimately creates a strong sense of belonging for them.

 

Last but not least, we have a Monthly Reward Night where we organize dinner and a celebration for all staff members to join and receive monthly awards for their best service. This aims to enhance the bonding between employees and to encourage them to perform better each month. We align our remuneration policy with regulatory requirements and best practice, while ensuring that our people are rewarded competitively for their achievements over the long term. In making performance and reward decisions, we consider not just ‘what’ our employees deliver, but ‘how’ they deliver it.

 

All in all, Standard Chartered constantly organizes programs for our employees, either in the form of programs that better serve our customers and communities, and which ensure they can be proud to work for an organisation that is ‘Here for good’ in everything it does, or in the form of direct employee interests.