Live purposeful

Employees

We are committed to building a healthier, more diverse and future-ready workforce that will boost our ability to spearhead the transformation of banking in a fast-changing business environment. DBS is committed to creating a collaborative work environment and equipping employees with the latest tools and technology. It is imperative to have highly engaged employees who feel valued and take pride in the growth of the business. The overall well-being and continual development of our 22,000 employees will help DBS to fulfill our aspiration to make banking with us a joy.

Building a future ready workforce

Continued investment in our people is a key priority for us. With the increasing threats posed by fintechs, it is necessary for us to future-proof our employees and inculcate a digital mindset in them.

We grew our workforce by approximately 1,000, primarily in Institutional Banking and Consumer Banking, to support strategic initiatives and meet business needs. We also grew headcount to support our digital initiatives. We hired a more diverse group of people including user experience designers and data analysts. Our talent pool in compliance, governance and risk management has also grown to meet the requirements of the evolving regulatory landscape.

The newly established DBS Academy learning centres in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan set a new benchmark for innovative learning spaces and approaches in the region. The DBS Academy conducts close to 15,000 training sessions each year, including a growing number of digital courses.

In Singapore, we also work with the government on future-proofing our employees. Over and above the government's SkillsFuture programme to promote life-long learning, Singapore employees ranked up to Senior Associates are given SGD500 DBS SkillsFlex Credit annually. They can use this to attend 10,000 courses organised through the government's SkillsFuture programme as well as 50 external courses that DBS has specially designed with NTUC LearningHub, a leading training provider. The courses cover topics that are relevant to the rapidly changing landscape including social intelligence, computational thinking and new media literacy.

In 2015, the number of training days undertaken by DBS employees rose to 129,000 days, which was 27% more than 102,000 days in 2013. This covers functional, leadership and future skills building. More than 450 customised learning roadmaps were built to cater to the different learning needs of our employees. Employees can also personalise their own learning roadmaps, assess their individual career progression and utilise the opportunities available in DBS to help them to accelerate their careers. In 2015, employees underwent an average of 6.4 days of training.

We encourage employees to embrace a digital mindset through experiential learning and experimentation through programmes such as DBS Hackathons, where they work with start-ups to develop solutions to business challenges. As a start, more than 2,000 employees gained exposure to digital culture, agile methodology and other digital working concepts through human-centred design workshops and hackathons held across the region. In 2015, when the bank launched the DBS HotSpot Pre-accelerator, a three-month programme to help digital start-ups grow their concepts into prototypes, a few employees jumped on the opportunity to go on paid sabbatical to work on their prototypes.

Beyond this, employees also get to work with research and analytics experts from A*STAR, a government science and technology research agency, and Singapore Management University to develop innovative products and services. This has helped to fast track the adoption of analytics across the bank.

We also have a well-established internal mobility programme that enables our employees to broaden their exposure across businesses and markets. Since the launch of the programme in 2010, participation has been steadily increasing. In 2015, 26% of positions were filled via internal transfers. This continues to be a priority for us as we strongly believe in creating more well-rounded bankers and providing opportunities for career development.

To groom the next generation of leaders, we have in place a robust succession planning strategy to identify future leaders at all levels. We provide them with development opportunities and help them build a strong collaborative network. Our Leadership Institute, part of the DBS Academy, offers a series of programmes for employees at different stages of leadership development from aspiring to management leadership.

Establishing a strong culture

Our people are our best ambassadors and all employees play a part in making banking joyful for our customers. This shared purpose is bolstered by our PRIDE! values – Purpose-driven, Relationship-led, Innovative, Decisive and E!verything Fun.

We believe effective communications is core to aligning our employees to organisation goals and priorities. To ensure that our employees embrace the PRIDE! values and understand our business priorities, our CEO and senior management actively engage employees through various platforms across the year including staff briefings, interactive blogs and webcasts.

In August, over 4,400 employees across the region participated in a week-long online exchange where they engaged in over 730 topics around digital, customer experience and innovation. The insights garnered from the exchange helped us discover even more ways to live our values. Additionally, about 800 senior leaders attended the PRIDE! Leaders Programme, and a majority signed up as change leaders to help champion our PRIDE! values.

All these efforts have resulted in a strong engagement outcome for DBS. 79% of our employees are engaged based on the 2015 My Voice Survey conducted by Aon Hewitt. The survey also shows that 84% of our employees are purpose-driven and believe what they do makes a difference.

Creating an inclusive and supportive environment

We are committed to providing an inclusive work environment where every employee can develop professionally and personally. When it comes to gender diversity, we are ahead of peer commercial banks. 57% of our workforce are women. One-third of management positions are held by women.

We believe in being there for our people and supporting them with flexible benefits that meet their present and future needs. More recently we refocused our recognition and rewards programmes towards insuring for health and providing more choice to employees.

Employees can leverage the Flexi Work Arrangement programme to balance their professional and personal needs. Through iFlex@DBS, employees also receive a fixed sum of money every year to use for wellness activities including dental treatments or vacations.

We also believe that a healthier workforce is a more effective one. Since 2011, the bank has provided free annual health screenings for all employees. This enables staff to identify and address emerging health concerns early. DBS was also one of the first organisations in Singapore to pioneer the ’Shield Companion Plan‘ – a medical plan that complements our employees' portable enhanced MediShield Plan. Under this scheme, the bank also pays a certain sum into employees' MediSave accounts to subsidise the premium for their portable medical plans.

This year, as part of the DBS Cares programme, we launched an integrated health management portal, iHealth@DBS, to promote holistic wellness among our employees. The portal connects seamlessly with mobile devices and wearables to provide our employees with greater insights into their overall well-being. The bank also launched a workout challenge, iStep Challenge, to get our employees to embrace healthy living in a fun way. Around 6,000 employees formed teams and took up the challenge to increase the number of steps they take each day.

Families are important to us and viewed as part of the extended DBS family. We organise annual events such as DBS Kids at Work and Family Day so that their loved ones can better appreciate how they are helping to shape the future of banking. Employees also receive birthday leave, which they can use to spend more time with their family or friends.

These initiatives go a long way in creating a fun and engaging environment for all of us at work. We continue to innovate and implement new ideas and concepts to strengthen our engagement with our employees.