DBS announces range of initiatives to embrace the future of work
Singapore.17 Nov 2020
Employees given flexibility to work remotely for up to 40% of the time
Upskilling agenda accelerated with 7,200 employees to be trained
Scaling up deployment of data-driven agile squads
Singapore, 17 Nov 2020 - To better address the massive changes brought about by Covid-19, DBS today announced that it will be implementing a series of transformation initiatives to realise new ways of working in the next normal.
These initiatives are a result of insights gathered from research, deep dive experiments and employee surveys conducted by a cross-functional regional Future of Work (FOW) Taskforce which the bank convened six months ago. They include:
Piyush Gupta, DBS CEO, said, “As the way we live, bank and work continues to change dramatically, we must address the magnitude of the disruptions before us. We are prepared to radically transform the way we work by introducing a comprehensive range of measures which include implementing a permanent hybrid work model, flexible work arrangements and deploying more agile squads while creating workspaces that will help to supercharge ideation and collaboration. We will also accelerate our employee upskilling agenda at scale and ingrain the use of data-driven operating models across the bank. By implementing these measures, we believe that Team DBS will emerge as a confident future-ready workforce.”
About DBS
DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 18 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world.
Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named “World’s Best Bank” by Euromoney, “Global Bank of the Year” by The Banker and “Best Bank in the World” by Global Finance. The bank is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney. In addition, DBS has been accorded the “Safest Bank in Asia” award by Global Finance for 12 consecutive years from 2009 to 2020.
DBS provides a full range of services in consumer, SME and corporate banking. As a bank born and bred in Asia, DBS understands the intricacies of doing business in the region’s most dynamic markets. DBS is committed to building lasting relationships with customers, and positively impacting communities through supporting social enterprises, as it banks the Asian way. It has also established a SGD 50 million foundation to strengthen its corporate social responsibility efforts in Singapore and across Asia.
With its extensive network of operations in Asia and emphasis on engaging and empowering its staff, DBS presents exciting career opportunities. The bank acknowledges the passion, commitment and can-do spirit in all of our 29,000 staff, representing over 40 nationalities. For more information, please visi twww.dbs.com.
These initiatives are a result of insights gathered from research, deep dive experiments and employee surveys conducted by a cross-functional regional Future of Work (FOW) Taskforce which the bank convened six months ago. They include:
- Distributed workforce model
All employees will be given the flexibility to work remotely up to 40% of the time. The FOW Taskforce found that over four in five of the bank’s 29,000-strong workforce are able to work seamlessly remotely. Close to 3,000 employees in Singapore indicated that while they are still productive while working remotely, staying engaged and connected with colleagues was challenging. As such, they prefer hybrid work arrangements over a pure ‘remote work’ or ‘work in office’ approach.
- Flexible work arrangements
Building on the ability to operate successfully in split teams over the past few months, the bank will be implementing a formal job-sharing scheme to better support employees who need more flexible work arrangements. The scheme will enable two employees to share the responsibilities of one full-time role. Employees on this scheme will retain all existing medical benefits in full and continue to be covered under the bank’s insurance plans. At the same time, the bank will also introduce more part-time work arrangements.
- More nimble and agile squads
DBS will accelerate its transition to operating models characterised not by conventional functional departments but by project-specific data-driven squads formed with members from different functions and relevant areas of expertise. This comes as the bank seeks to deepen its customer journey design thinking and create value beyond the usual confines of banking as it identifies opportunities in adjacencies and industry ecosystems. While agile squads are already commonplace in some parts of the bank, primarily in the technology space, this approach will now be extended at scale to other parts of the bank.
- Equipping employees with skillsets of the future
As skills required in banking are fast evolving and new types of roles are being introduced, DBS will be doubling down on its efforts to upskill and reskill employees. Employees will be trained in emerging areas such as design thinking, data and analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and agile practices. Over 7,200 employees across the bank will be upskilled or reskilled and of this group, about 4,300 are in Singapore.
- Re-designing work and collaboration spaces
Over 80% of employees across key markets indicated that they prefer to have more open collaboration spaces to facilitate informal discussions and cross-team ideation, which they found difficult to do remotely. Building on its experience in developing ‘JoySpaces’, or activity-based workspaces since 2016, DBS will further reconfigure its workspaces to enable greater collaboration and ideation. The bank will also be launching a 5,000-square foot ‘Living Lab’ that aims to blend the best of physical and virtual work space configurations.
Piyush Gupta, DBS CEO, said, “As the way we live, bank and work continues to change dramatically, we must address the magnitude of the disruptions before us. We are prepared to radically transform the way we work by introducing a comprehensive range of measures which include implementing a permanent hybrid work model, flexible work arrangements and deploying more agile squads while creating workspaces that will help to supercharge ideation and collaboration. We will also accelerate our employee upskilling agenda at scale and ingrain the use of data-driven operating models across the bank. By implementing these measures, we believe that Team DBS will emerge as a confident future-ready workforce.”
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About DBS
DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 18 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world.
Recognised for its global leadership, DBS has been named “World’s Best Bank” by Euromoney, “Global Bank of the Year” by The Banker and “Best Bank in the World” by Global Finance. The bank is at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking, having been named “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney. In addition, DBS has been accorded the “Safest Bank in Asia” award by Global Finance for 12 consecutive years from 2009 to 2020.
DBS provides a full range of services in consumer, SME and corporate banking. As a bank born and bred in Asia, DBS understands the intricacies of doing business in the region’s most dynamic markets. DBS is committed to building lasting relationships with customers, and positively impacting communities through supporting social enterprises, as it banks the Asian way. It has also established a SGD 50 million foundation to strengthen its corporate social responsibility efforts in Singapore and across Asia.
With its extensive network of operations in Asia and emphasis on engaging and empowering its staff, DBS presents exciting career opportunities. The bank acknowledges the passion, commitment and can-do spirit in all of our 29,000 staff, representing over 40 nationalities. For more information, please visi twww.dbs.com.