Over the past year, one name that’s consistently been at the forefront of banking-related news has been SDB bank.
They have made rapid progress in the financial sector with their twin focuses of serving the country’s wider population and its rural areas. We have witnessed SDB bank embrace technology more wholly and place greater emphasis on its human capital resource, to emerge as one of Sri Lanka’s top corporate banks.
‘We are working towards making ours a “Great Place to Work” and securing the certification for the same, which is fully backed by our own people’, said HR Head of SDB bank, Sudath Silva. “The bank is striving to set a benchmark in the financial industry as a preferred employer and we are currently making strategic changes to reach this goal,” Sudath further added.
In an interview with The Daily News, Sudath Silva explained: “It is important to be a modern, yet to be an organization with Sri Lankan touch in terms of value creation and employees play a critical role in this regard.” He went onto say that parallel to providing a conducive working environment, many initiatives are in SDB bank’s pipeline to recognize and channel the potential of its workforce in making them future ready.
An intriguing conversation on the bank’s efforts at improving work culture, its HR component, strategic changes, employee engagement, role of unions and numerous other topics, ensued during the course of the interview. The full excerpt is given below.
Improving work culture
An engaged employee is an asset while a disengaged employee is a cost to the organization. At SDB bank, we have recognized the promotion of employee engagement as a top-priority in our strategic plan to transform ourselves into the future bank of the country. We have recently ramped up efforts at improving work culture by partnering with global culture consultation heavyweights ‘Great Place to Work’. We initiated this effort to measure the bank’s current levels of employee engagement and satisfaction. Thereafter, based on the outcome of the culture audit survey, we will come up with an action plan to address issues and improve each delineated area. This would enhance our overall employee value proposition and employability, greatly benefiting both current and prospective staff.
We have also embraced digital recently with the introduction of several mobile apps, including Sri Lanka’s fastest growing payment app, UPay. Management thinking would change drastically as a result of the rapid transformation taking place companywide. These measures would help attract a talented pool of employees from across the industry, to partake in a journey to develop and build the future banking partner for all Sri Lankans. As I see it, the HR challenge for SDB bank is one that is highly unique because it is a bank. Therefore, each of the bank’s connected work elements and stakeholders need to be considered in the full mix.
Humans have always displayed highly complex behaviors and having to manage people has always presented challenges. The digital age has added even greater complexity to human resource management, with the prevalence of issues such as the transparency of social media and collaborating with remote and international teams. It is clear to see that human resources is a difficult job with numerous challenges being faced today. However, this also means that the identification and overcoming of human resource challenges, is time, money and effort that’s well spent, because there’s no greater asset a company can boast of than its employees.
Considering the major challenges of modern HR Professionals, I would like to say they include attracting the very best talent from the market; driving people to embrace change; developing future leaders while fostering a culture of learning; managing diversity; health and safety management and creating a quality work-life experience through an enhanced value proposition.
We need to remember that HR Management is not merely personnel management involving hiring, firing and statutory matters. HR has a responsibility to identify the right people, secure them, groom them to be innovative and give recognition to ensure the business is carried towards its planned goals. Parallelly, HR has to be far-sighted, extremely knowledgeable and aware of the challenging nature of business to prepare for both present and future challenges. The more you understand the business, the more value you can add. In this regard, the HR Head has to be a facilitator and an enabler as each staff member is unique. HR is supposed to play the role of a cog-wheel that synchronizes the efforts of all other wheels in deriving the best outcome.
It is imperative to look into how the management and board facilitate HR to add the most value to the business. Beyond hiring and firing functions and short-term thinking, the discussion in the boardroom ought to be what value HR can add in transforming its human talent for the future of the business. Incorporation of world-class HR practices and systems in order to harness the true potential in people should be at the top of the list for HR Heads. Investing in people and generating outcomes many-fold, should be the challenge that HR throws to corporate management. Boards and CEOs should enable the HR professionals of their setup to be creative and execute strategy, without being barriers to progress. They need to trust and believe in their HR leader.
Trade union leadership
Trade unions too have a role in empowering the HR element and tending to employee welfare. In my opinion, trade unions can be productive if they understand their scope and the original purpose of their existence. They have got to place their trust in the management and board because it is these officials who have been appointed professionally to run the organization. Trade unions are formed to safeguard the rights and interests of people, if the employer flouts such responsibilities. The trade union leadership should be able to grasp the long-term business strategy and support management to realize it. Unions should embrace performance-based culture as well. In the absence of a performance-oriented culture, individuals will not grow and everyone will become complacent and content with average performances. The Parent Unions should have proper control over the branch unions to ensure that the branch leadership lives up to the union’s philosophy and the overall objective of their existence. I believe the issue is not with the trade unions or their philosophy, but most probably with the calibre, attitude and education levels of the people who hold leadership positions in the unions.
In any organization, management communication plays a huge role when developing culture. At SDB bank, we are looking to improve the communication aspect as it has been a missing link for quite a while. We now strive to be as transparent as possible and adopt an open-door culture. There are no restrictions in meeting senior management, for whatever reason.
The performance management aspect too should be strengthened across organizations. The bank has taken the initiative to launch a proper performance management system and all rewards and recognition have to be linked to this system.
We are presently working towards this. With an integrated performance management system, our staff can be developed further and we have plans to run several high-level management development programs as well. This will help us expedite the development needs of our front-line managers and branch staff, who represent our direct customer contact points.
I am extremely happy about the freedom afforded to us and the trust placed in HR at SDB bank by the Board and CEO, to develop an HR strategy that fully caters to the bank’s current direction. I also humbly remember the immense encouragement displayed by the Board and CEO when the new HR strategy was initially proposed. It is a plus point and a source of strength to have a board and management that is very keen about HR outcomes and our involvement in the business.
We have around 1400 staff at present and 94 branches countrywide. We touch many of the country’s rural households and take great joy in making the simple and humble people who are valuable to us, happy. When there is no one to help them, we extend our financial support to help them stand on their own feet. In order to make our efforts more effective, there is a massive opportunity in developing our own workforce further. Then, our people would be able to go anywhere and proudly claim they are working for the future bank of the country. We need leaders who can independently run the operation and ensure we honour the trust our customers place in us. SDB bank’s HR unit has an enormous challenge ahead to strengthen itself for the next big leap. To prepare a workforce to embrace our digital transformation is another enormous task before us.
We are also aggressively looking at ways and means to have a well engaged team. People should be comfortable working for us and they should truly feel that their interests are being taken care of. Our nature is to remain long-term in jobs and companies where we feel accepted and valued and where our interests are respected. This is exactly what we want to do here. Towards this end, we have already taken many initiatives in the areas of welfare, recreation, health and safety.
Serve the underprivileged
SDB bank commenced its operation with a vision to serve primarily the underprivileged communities of our country. In the 22 years since incorporation in 1997, SDB bank has not only shown financial resilience to withstand the economic and practical challenges that accompanied a 30-year civil war in the country, but it has also progressed to become the leading financial institution in serving a part of society that would otherwise not have had the opportunity to further their aspirations and experience economic growth.
For its efforts in this regard, it has been bestowed with awards such as the ‘Fastest growing MSME Bank in Sri Lanka 2018’ from the Global Banking and Finance Review Awards 2018.
The journey has already begun. What is important is to persevere relentlessly in driving our strategy and vision, without losing the focus. The management has a responsibility to drive this effort.
At the conclusion of the interview, I asked him what he meant by management. He said, “Management is anybody who leads a team. So everyone at SDB bank is invited to contribute to the journey of success as we are not only after growth but SUCCESS.
We are going to trust and develop our own people. Looking after the people has greater meaning than merely giving salary increases and bonuses. Looking after the people means helping them be the best version of themselves. If we genuinely focus on this, it will help us to fully realise and reap the dividends of a simple but powerful truth: “Let our leaders look after the people and let people look after our business.”
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