Report to Society 2019 - Esg employee development

Our people

The Standard Bank Group employs over 48 000 people (excluding Liberty). We strive to create a work environment in which our people feel deeply connected to our purpose, their colleagues and our clients; are empowered to, and recognised for, delivering against our strategic objectives and being client centric in everything that they do; make the most of every opportunity to embrace new ways of working and learning new skills to remain relevant and achieve their full potential; and are encouraged to speak up and feel heard.

Our recruitment, on-boarding and training processes are designed to entrench our values, ethics and conduct standards across the group.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

3 781 employees across all geographies took part in leadership development programmes in 2019.
2 815 employees participated in customised programmes to meet specific requirements for business areas or countries. Of these attendees, 58% were women.

We launched our tailored leadership programme, Journey to Greatness, for our top 167 leaders in 2019, bringing together leaders from across our geographies and business areas, driving strategic alignment and developing behaviours aligned to our leadership identity.
We provide ongoing opportunities for senior executives and managers to gain international exposure through the Leadercast programme, conferences and international business school programmes.
Our Phakama Coaching programme is designed to accredit senior executives who are nearing retirement as coaches, enabling us to leverage their wisdom and institutional memory as they support the development of our future leaders.

Our preference is to promote from within. The identification of potential successors for executive roles forms an integral part of our annual talent review process. Over the past two years, the Africa Regions team has developed and begun implementing Last Mile, a bespoke programme to support selected individuals to take the step from executive to chief executive, with a particular focus on increasing the representation of women chief executives at country and regional level. The programme is based on insights from our existing regional and country level chief executives, together with extensive external research, to understand best practice for chief executive successor development, including specific research around female chief executive development. We have identified a pool of successors who demonstrate readiness to assume a chief executive role within the next few years. Through Last Mile, we will work with them to accelerate their readiness – gaining an understanding of their individual developmental needs, based on objective assessments and in-depth interviews, and developing tailored development plans for each participant. The inaugural cohort of Last Mile participants consists of 11 employees, of whom five are women.

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EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

We encourage continuous learning and development to ensure our people are equipped to meet the demands of a rapidly changing and increasingly digital world of work.

We invest in training and development at all levels, enabling us to build a strong succession pipeline of future leaders. We’re also investing in our people to help them become future-ready, developing their skills as the financial industry evolves.

Our online learning platform ensures the availability of innovative skills development tools and learning content to all our employees. In 2019 we piloted an innovative, cloud-based micro-learning platform which gives all employees access to the learning resources they require to improve their current skills and build future skills. Using behavioural and data science, this solution continuously analyses employees’ skill sets to personalise development pathways based on their unique skills, roles and learning goals. Our employees are also embracing opportunities to learn via our world-class digital libraries, which provide them with access to a large volume of training courses and learning videos.

In 2019 we invested

R878 million

in skills development, equivalent to 2.5% of staff costs

8.4%

of all employees attended management and leadership development programmes

60.4 %

of positions were filled internally at group level over the past year

Examples of skills development programmes in 2019

The group launched an 18-month cloud internship. 19 students are participating in a six-month classroombased course, after which they’ll join teams across Standard Bank for a 12-month period, working on cloud-related projects.

The group launched the Standard Bank Cyber Security Academy in July 2019. The first cohort of 75 employees completed the programme at the end of 2019, gaining them industry-recognised accreditation from various security vendors.

In South Africa, 4 225 employees are retraining as universal bankers to broaden their skills to meet the changing needs of our clients. The programme provides a nationally recognised NQF5 qualification.

1 484 employees enrolled in learnership programmes to build scarce, critical skills in areas including data analytics, IT, auditing and finance and future skills such as data science, robotics, behavioural economics and cloud computing.

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Employee bursaries and learnerships

We encourage our employees to stay up to date with developments in their fields and to continuously develop their professional skills. Our employees can apply for bursaries to study further at recognised tertiary institutions. Tailored employee bursary schemes are implemented in specific countries of operation. Bursaries for under- and post-graduate studies were provided to 1 794 employees across the group in 2019.

We also offer learnerships for our employees, to enable them to keep their skills relevant and up to date. Focus areas include evolving regulatory environments; and areas such as data science, robotics, behavioural economics and cloud computing.

Employee exchange programmes and secondments

As an international group with an expansive footprint across Africa, we’re proud to have employees from over 50 different countries. We value multi-country experience and offer international training opportunities for our people. 120 employees participated in international assignments in 2019. The cross-cultural awareness that results from the programme facilitates our ability to conduct business across Africa. At the same time, international assignments support succession planning for key roles, with a strong focus on strengthening the diversity of our senior leadership teams across Standard Bank and building a diverse medium to long-term succession pipeline.

Standard Bank and ICBC established an employee exchange programme in 2016, which enables selected employees across Africa and China to spend time in headquarters of both our banks. Since inception, 43 assignees have participated in short and long-term assignments. Eight employees participated in 2019. The programme supports collaboration and relationship building between ICBC and Standard Bank, enabling the sharing of knowledge, cross-cultural exposure and the advancement of commercial and client objectives.

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TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION

Employee retention and turnover
Overall turnover increased to 10.8%, from 8.3%, largely as a result of the retrenchments that took place as a result of branch closures in South Africa and reconfiguration in our information technology and shared services functions.

Voluntary employee turnover declined marginally year-on-year and our voluntary regrettable turnover remained stable at a low 2.3%. Our overall and voluntary turnover remain well below global financial industry benchmarks of 14.4% and 9.3% respectively (Source: Gartner CEB Global benchmarks: 2018).

Turnover
	Scope	Measure	2019	2018	2017
Voluntary turnover rate	SBG	%	4.8	4.9	5.5
Overall employee turnover¹	SBG	%	10.8	8.3	8.8
Voluntary regrettable turnover²	SBG	%	2.3	2.3	2.3
Voluntary turnover at executive level	SBG	%	3.8	4.8	4.3
Voluntary turnover rates (African)	SBSA	%	4.6	5.0	5.5
Voluntary turnover rates (black females)	SBSA	%	3.9	4.3	4.5
Black female hires as a % of total hires	SBSA	%	3.8	4.8	4.3

1 Gartner CEB global benchmarks: 2018.
2 High performing permanent employees leaving the group on a voluntary basis

Voluntary turnover rate 2019

4.8%

Overall turnover 2019

10.8%

Graduate programme

We strive to attract and retain talented individuals in the banking sector. Our graduate programme provides an entry point into the corporate world for university graduates, supporting skills development and on-the-job training, nurturing future skills within the group and building a diverse workforce to drive Africa’s growth. Participants are exposed to different departments and opportunities across the group and work closely with a variety of senior colleagues. 183 graduates joined the group this year on our various programmes, with a strong focus on data science and quantitative skills.

In 2019, we were awarded the SA Graduate Employers Association, Employer of Choice award in Commercial and Retail Banking for the ninth time in ten years.

Internships and learnerships for unemployed young people

To build a bridge for young people entering the world of work, address racial, gender and geographical challenges to educational advancement, and develop the kind of skills needed by Standard Bank, we introduced learnership programmes for unemployed young people in 2007. The programmes provide a crucial opportunity to gain work experience. For many participants it’s their first job.

In 2019, we enrolled

709

young people in learnership programmes

729

learners from the 2018 intake completed their programmes during 2019

374

of these learners were retained at Standard Bank