Introduction

Highlights

• Met employment equity (EE) targets for gender and racial representation.
• Introduced the multi-rater, a people management skills development tool.
• Introduced Blue4U, to help employees balance the pressures of work and home life.
• Launched the Blue Wave Africa satellite broadcast channel.

Challenges in 2005

• Ensuring gender sensitivity across the group.
• A relative decline against participants in the Best Company To Work For survey.
• Creating a great place to work for our employees and improving our people management.

Looking ahead we will:

• Continue to bring diversity into the heart of the business.
• Improve employee engagement and further sharpen our focus on value adding activities.
• Revitalise our leadership development programmes and facilities.
• Focus on disabled employees.

Overview

We continue to work hard to make the bank a great place to work, and to ensure that our employees enjoy a positive, productive and diverse workplace.

In 2005, we reached our EE targets for gender and racial representation. In line with our vision to promote diversity at all levels, transformation is being driven at business unit level through transformation forums, which are required to report into a central EE reporting structure.

To assist us in benchmarking our people management practices against those of other companies, we subscribe to two independent benchmarking surveys.

In the 2005 Deloitte & Touche/Financial Mail Best Company To Work For survey, which polls employee perceptions, we showed a year-on-year improvement in all categories. However, relative to other participants, our ranking dropped from 35th in 2004 to 54th out of 121 participating companies in 2005. In view of this, we have reviewed our efforts to make our ability to attract, motivate and retain talent a strategic priority within the organisation.

Corporate Research Foundation in association with Business Report publishes “The Best Companies to work for in South Africa” each year. They identify the top 10 best employers using an inclusive panel of experts to evaluate companies on a basis proposed by Grant Thornton. Their 2005 research concluded that we were the second best employer in South Africa. This is an opinion-based assessment of our external employer brand.

The Blue Wave Africa satellite broadcast channel was launched in 2005, uniting employees across the rest of Africa.

Employee development

Leadership development

Early in 2005 we gave new impetus to leadership development by appointing a member of the group executive to oversee the entire portfolio for the group. This includes the new leadership centre, the 360⁰ feedback system, coaching and mentoring, as well as career and talent management processes.

Our leadership programmes have been developed according to international best practice and are delivered in partnership with local and international providers. The Gordon Institute of Business Science, for example, is the anchor partner on many of our programmes. Through these programmes, we are able to offer our employees a range of opportunities to broaden their skills.

There are six programmes within the current Standard Bank leadership development portfolio, each addressing a specific career transition point as shown in the table below.

Morningside Leadership Centre.

Development programmes

We offer our employees opportunities to enhance their skills levels and develop their careers through various development programmes, shown in the table below.

Bursaries

Standard Bank offers bursaries to employees for courses leading to qualifications relevant to the needs of the bank, contributing to the employee’s performance ability in a current role or to prepare for future opportunities. Employees succeeding in their studies are required to remain in service for a period equal to the duration of the bursary, in which case the bursary does not have to be repaid.

Talent management and performance recognition

Succession planning

Standard Bank conducted a skills mapping and profiling process in 2005. This has allowed us to review our succession planning framework and identify where we will be able to meet anticipated future demand, and where external recruitment will need to be made.

Remuneration

We believe in the importance of employees sharing in the success they create. To this end, we adopt a pay for contribution philosophy. According to this philosophy, individual reward, or the “pay decision”, is differentiated according to the individual’s relative contribution using a ranking process.

Employee ownership

The Black Economic Empowerment Ownership (Tutuwa) initiative launched in 2004 included three Black Managers’ Trusts. The combined effect of these trusts and a General Staff Scheme, launched at the same time, has been to include all qualifying permanent employees as potential owners of the business.

Performance appraisals

A formal performance appraisal process forms part of our performance management system. This process involves:

• A performance “contract” defined by employees and the bank at the beginning of the year.
• An interim appraisal conducted at midyear.
• A final appraisal conducted at year-end.

Multi-rater

A multi-rater process for all managers was introduced in 2005 with the objective of improving leadership practices. The initial implementation is being used to drive personal development. Going forward the multi-rater tool will be integrated into our managerial performance appraisal process.

Employee well being

Health risk management

Standard Bank has implemented a Health Risk Management philosophy. A risk rating for all medical investigations is undertaken (whether for pre-benefit testing, travellers medical or simply a health risk assessment through the medical aid) enabling us to monitor and reduce risk.

During 2006, together with Bankmed (the bank’s medical aid scheme), we will drive usage of our Health Risk Assessment instrument across the country, targeting an estimated 15 000 employees. This process will heighten awareness around health issues and identify employees at risk of lifestyle diseases, providing these employees with the means to deal with stress and organisational change, thus reducing associated absenteeism and sick leave costs.

Independent Counselling and Advisory Service (ICAS)

All employees and their immediate families have access to ICAS. ICAS is a confidential, free service that can be accessed through a toll free number (0800 611 057) available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This service offers emotional support on a variety of issues (trauma, relationships, stress and health, including HIV/Aids). Utilisation has reached 22%, reflecting the value employees derive from the service. Usage statistics indicate that all levels of employees, including management, actively utilise the programme. ICAS delivers statistics that enable us to develop and implement appropriate interventions, such as relationship workshops, courses in dealing with conflict, and managing HIV/Aids education programmes.

Blue4U

We recognise the need to assist our employees in balancing the pressures of work and home life. In 2005, we introduced Blue4U, a range of telephonic services developed to assist all permanent employees and their immediate families.

Blue4U shops around on our employees’ behalf, providing medical and computer advice, offering employees’ children access to qualified teachers and providing immediate support with household and roadside emergencies. Most services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Blue4U services were extended to both Liberty Life and Stanlib in September 2005.

The accompanying table sets out the Global Reporting Indicators for HIV/Aids and a description on how we are addressing these indicators.

Disabled employees

In line with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, Standard Bank regards people with disabilities as designated employees with regard to transformation and employment equity. Disabled people are therefore amongst the beneficiaries of our affirmative action programme.

The Standard Bank Centre in Johannesburg caters for the disabled in terms of building access and workstations. Beyond that, the work environment is aligned on a need basis, although the extent of alignment across our South African and international offices is unknown. With a focus on people with disabilities during 2006, we will conduct a general work environment audit and submit monthly reports to exco and periodic reports to the transformation committee.

We acknowledge low levels of representation of people with disabilities in our domestic workforce (0,5%) and we are currently in discussions with transformation managers in the business units to set recruitment targets for people with disabilities. A reasonable accommodation policy is currently being developed and should be completed in 2006.

Women at Standard Bank

 

We have recognised the need to increase our gender sensitivity and our ability to offer a flexible and accommodating work environment for women.

Some of the ways in which we are addressing women’s needs include the following:

• Maternity leave (four months continuous leave at full pay and a further two months unpaid leave) is offered to all female employees.
• Gender neutral policies and practices.
• Charter targets set for female representation at various levels have been met or exceeded.
• A women’s networking forum in CIB.

Restructuring and efficiency improvement

As part of our ongoing review of productivity and structural efficiencies, several restructuring exercises took place during the year. We also continuously assess functions that may not be core to our business and, where appropriate, consider outsourcing such functions.

During 2005 the balance of our Cash-in-Transit function was transferred, as a going concern, to SBV Services (Pty) Limited, a specialised service provider in that field, owned by the big four commercial banks.

Given the declining volume of cheques in the market, Standard Bank entered into a joint venture with ABSA during January 2005, in a bid to capitalise on the benefits of economies of scale. Under the terms of the agreement, a new company, Integrated Processing Solutions (Proprietary) Limited (IPS), was formed with the purpose of combining the cheque clearing facilities of both banks. In addition to purchasing 50% of the share capital of IPS, Standard Bank transferred certain assets and resources to the joint venture.

In August 2005, we initiated a Productivity Self-Assessment exercise within the head office complex. This involved a thorough assessment of all managerial and executive positions with a view to eliminating overlaps and duplication of functions, and ensuring that all senior positions provide the required value add.

The bank’s branch network also underwent significant restructuring, aimed at optimising the provincial structures and focusing these on improved customer service. The number of regions was reduced from 34 to 28 during this initiative.

We are committed to dealing with restructuring initiatives in a fair and equitable manner. A well established consultation process involving “Sasbo, the Finance Union” (Sasbo) and affected non-unionised employees is in place. Dismissals based on operational requirements (retrenchments) are always viewed as a last resort and in many of the initiatives referred to, a significant number of affected employees were successfully redeployed into other positions within the bank.

During 2005, a total of 204 domestic banking employees’ services were terminated for operational reasons.

Grievance procedures

Employees can voice grievances through our formal grievance procedures, set out in an internal procedures manual, which is available to all employees. Where an individual’s conduct is considered to be in violation of our values, policies and procedures, appropriate counselling or disciplinary action is taken.

Employee relations

Sasbo is the recognised collective bargaining agent for employees below managerial level (the bargaining unit). Some 56% of employees in the bargaining unit are members of this union. In line with our endorsement of the principle of freedom of association, managerial staff may also belong to a union and approximately 31% are Sasbo members.

Formal engagement with the union takes place in the Negotiation and Consultation Forum (NCF), which has been constituted by the Recognition Agreement between the bank and Sasbo. The NCF consists of elected union representatives and management delegates.

Some of the matters dealt with at NCF level include:

• Annual salary negotiations.
• Consultations in terms of Section 189A of the Labour Relations Act on restructuring initiatives/staff redundancies.
• Negotiations on material changes to employment terms (for example, working hours).
• Relevant policy and procedure issues.

The NCF meets on a regular, pre-scheduled basis, but provision is also made for either party to request special meetings of the forum. Regular interactions also take place between the union and Standard Bank on ad hoc matters. In general, 2005 was a very positive year for the bank in terms of its relationship with Sasbo.

Emplyee statistics

Employee turnover 

	2005	2004
Domestic banking permanent employees at beginning of year	28 108	27 670
Add:
Recruitment	3 984	3 113
	32 092	30 783
Less:
Resignations	2 417	1 779
Retrenchments	204	202
Dismissals	427	399
Retirements	173	137
Other	353	158
Domestic banking permanent employees at end of year	28 518	28 108
Add:
Rest of Africa	6 119	5 799
Corporate & Investment Banking International	1 494	1 376
Stanlib	551	537
Liberty Life	3 563	3 260
Total number of employees at end of year	40 245	39 080

Statistics relating to Standard Bank’s domestic operations only

Employee breakdown by charter bands

		2005			2004
Charter band	Black1	White	Total	Black1	White	Total
Executives and senior management	209	805	1 014	148	706	854
Middle management	912	1 949	2 861	726	1 904	2 630
Junior management	1 989	2 508	4 497	1 665	2 514	4 179
Sub-total	3 110	5 262	8 372	2 539	5 124	7 663
Employees not included in the charter bands	14 341	5 805	20 146	14 071	6 374	20 445
Total	17 451	11 067	28 518	16 610	11 498	28 108
1Black includes Africans, Coloureds and Indians. Note: The above table excludes Stanbic Africa head office employees.