Pillar 1: Human resource development

Review of progress

Standard Bank’s transformation philosophy centres on diversity as a key business imperative. Tapping into a diverse spread of talents and perspectives benefits both the bank, its customers and employees.

There are three key objectives defined by the Human Resources Development commitments in the charter, namely to increase representation of black people at all levels within the organisation, particularly at management levels; to facilitate this increase in representivity through developing the skills of existing and new black employees; and to work in conjunction with government to enable young black people to enter into employment, with the opportunity to grow and develop skills that they may not otherwise have had access to.

We continue to build and strengthen an organisational culture that embraces diversity, with our values forming a common basis for our conduct and interactions.

Over the past two years, approximately 80 diversity awareness and training workshops were conducted, reaching over 2 490 employees throughout the bank. In addition, the bank’s various leadership development programmes incorporate components focusing on understanding and managing diversity for a business advantage.

Standard Bank strives to continually build and strengthen a diverse organisational culture, with our values forming the foundation of our behaviours.

It is important to note that the charter incorporates a holistic approach to human resource development that goes beyond targeted recruitment and training. The importance of practices such as mentorship, coaching and career planning contribute towards a sustainable increase in the representation of black people at all levels in the organisation.

Career pathing, mentorship and leadership development

The bank has numerous leadership development programmes that are designed to equip our employees to become leaders within the organisation with the appropriate knowledge and skills to direct the business successfully into the future. The participation of black employees in leadership development programmes has steadily increased over the past two years. Since 2004, the number of black participants on our Wings leadership development programme has increased substantially.

Currently, Standard Bank does not have a formal career path or mentorship programme in place. However, in the case of mentorship, the bank is currently designing and implementing a framework that will target employees that have been identified as future leaders within the organisation. The mentorship programme is not exclusively for black employees, but given a deficit of black talent at the senior and executive management levels within the organisation, black employees will be specifically targeted.

Career pathing takes place within the bank at a business unit level in the form of career management committees. There is no formal groupwide programme on career pathing, but it is an integral part of the bank’s retention strategy.

Targets

To date, the bank has met, and in some cases exceeded, its internal 2008 transformation targets, which were deliberately set above the 2008 charter targets. This success is largely attributable to our commitment to build a company that, increasingly, reflects the demographics of our country.

Figure 1 shows that the bank has exceeded all 2008 charter targets in relation to employment equity (EE) as at 31 December 2005. However, the maximum points available for EE (15) were not achieved as the bank did not obtain the bonus points available for representation by black people at the senior management and junior management levels. There are no bonus points available for middle management.

The bank will gain one bonus point if representation by black people reaches or exceeds 25% at the senior management level. Furthermore, a 0,75 bonus point is also available when black junior management representation is between 45% and 50%, and another 0,75 point may be achieved once black junior management representation reaches or exceeds 50%.

The bank has set its internal EE targets in line with the charter targets for bonus point allocations. According to the trend lines in Figure 2 and Figure 4, the bank should obtain the bonus points available for senior and junior management by the end of December 2006 and the beginning of March 2008 respectively.

The trend in Figure 4 shows that the bank is likely to achieve 50% representation of black people in junior management in early to middle 2008.

Employment equity (%)

Figure 1

Black senior management (%)

Figure 2

Black middle management (%)

Figure 3

Black junior management (%)

Figure 4