RHB Banking Group: Journey Towards A High-Performing Organisation

Photo (above): Great teams and dynamic workplace at RHB Banking Group

RHB Banking Group has a history of over 100 years. Established through a series of significant mergers and acquisitions, the Group’s history has provided a strong foundation that has allowed the Group to emerge stronger as it strives for further growth.

It is today the fourth largest fully integrated financial services group in Malaysia, and the Group’s core businesses are streamlined into three main business pillars, namely:

• Group Retail and Commercial Banking.
• Group International Business.
• Group Corporate and Investment Banking.

The Group’s regional presence now spans nine countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Laos.

Culture ◆Values ◆RHB way

What sets RHB Banking Group apart from the rest is the dynamism of the people that make up RHB.

The RHB team takes pride in everything they do, guided by the principle of delivering the best – best in service and in practice in order to be the best financial services provider. The Group is where it is today because of its people.

Guided by P.R.I.D.E, which stands for their core values (Professional, Respect, Integrity, Dynamic and Excellence), it is the driving force of RHB-ians at the workplace.

Embedding the Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Dynamism and Excellence among all employees is the RHB way – managing its people by treating them not just as an employer but as a partner in ensuring employees experience fulfillment and holistic development at the workplace.

The people agenda – A long journey ahead

The RHB Banking Group, in its strategy or people agenda, aspires to be a prominent employer of choice within the region. This is in tandem with its aspiration to be a leading multinational financial services group.
To this end, the Group has put in place various initiatives to engage, develop and nurture its people including:

◆ People engagement – Think, feel and act

It is known that an organisation is made up of its people. At RHB, it is about engaging its people to think, feel and act as one.

In promoting this and ensuring the impact spreads across the organisation, steps were taken to align its operating structure, values and mission.

The leadership team within RHB underwent their own personal alignment. Anchored by its P.R.I.D.E core values, the changes slowly but surely made an impact on its people.

◆ Communications – Togetherness in aspirations

Internal communications were increased with RHB leaders making an increased effort to communicate and stay in touch with their colleagues and team members through roadshows, town-halls, and coffee and breakfast sessions, where aspirations are shared to motivate and nurture the RHB family.

◆ Best in class – The way forward

Over the last few years, RHB has shown significant improvements as an employer in various areas. This continues to be acknowledged by the industry with the various awards and recognitions garnered, including the MIHRM Grand Award for Employer of Choice, HR Asia Best Companies to Work for 2014, GRADUAN Brand Awards Top 50 Companies and the Malaysia’s 100 Leading Graduate Employer.

◆ Great teams – nurturing for success

Great teams are made up of a combination of various strengths of its members. At RHB, these teams work towards nurturing and developing each member’s strengths to his/her fullest potential.

Development in areas of leadership, technical and functional competencies are already in place. Training platforms such as online learning has been made available for its people since 2011.

High potential talents are provided with a structured development programme across the organisation, and fresh talents are enrolled in its Structured Management Associates Programme.

◆ Dynamic workplace – Growing together

At RHB the focus is on creating a dynamic workplace. The approach of “Hire for Potential” is applied in their hiring and selection process.

Through its Competency Based Talent Management Framework, RHB ensures that the best talents become a part of the RHB team.

RHB also ensures that the performance of its people is measured regularly and applies the Balanced Scorecard as its performance measurement tool.

Applying stretched KPIs (key performance indicators) and challenging targets is a normal practice within the organisation. In return, high performers are rewarded accordingly.

The organisation also prides itself in ensuring that its rewards practices are competitive and on par, if not superior, to the practices of the industry which are performance-based, holistic and place emphasis on the interest of their employees.

◆ Igniting potential – Today is the future

Career Discussion has also been introduced as part of RHB practice in managing career aspirations.

RHB empowers its people to take charge of their own careers and set their own career paths, and assists by enabling the right environment and tools to facilitate their career aspirations.

RHB also applies forward thinking in its approach as the talent market increasingly becomes dominated by the Gen-Y.

In managing such market shifts and changes, RHB has taken steps to introduce its research findings and has shared with all its leadership team a guide entitled Managing a Multigenerational Workforce for High Performance as an enabler to assist its people managers.

◆ RHB way – Great teams, dynamic workplace

RHB is constantly looking at the various aspects of talent management to build a high-performing regional ready workforce and this includes transforming its human resources operating model, enhancing talent development platforms and putting in place an enterprise-wide human resource and client management system.

◆ Moving forward

The Group believes that striking the right balance between organisational demands and employee needs is vital and that it is crucial to ensure sustainability throughout all aspects, be it in business operations, people performance or productivity.

RHB recognises that employee needs at the workplace are individually different and they strive to build an environment in which employees are fully engaged and committed to business success.

It is also committed towards building a work environment that is conducive with a culture that cultivates commitment towards a common objective.

Going forward, the RHB Banking Group will continue to strive towards being a high-performing organisation and position itself as a preferred employer across the region.

If you are interested in pursuing a career with RHB Banking Group, visit http://www.rhb.com.my/corporate_profile/career/

Published in English daily The Star, Malaysia, 6 December 2014