Fully-integrated Human Resources Project for a State-owned Bank in China

Issues

The Bank rose to a tremendous challenge to design a highly-effective organization structure, build a competent team, and set up a fully-integrated human resources infrastructure to support the rapid expansion of its card business.

After a thorough review on where the Bank stood in terms of human resources management, the following areas had been identified to address areas such as :

• organization structure
• clearer roles and responsibilities
• job grading and title systems
• competency model
• performance management system
• succession planning
• technical and management skills training

Approach

After an in-depth research on their business challenges, medium business plan and competitive edges, Leadingenes proposed an organization structure with well-defined roles and responsibilities of each department and position. The enhanced structure was then followed by a job description write-up and a job evaluation exercise, resulting in a clear job grade system with corresponding titles for individual positions. Upon completion, skills for both job description write-up and job evaluation were transferred to the Human Resources Team to ensure a continuous application and maintenance.

Subsequent to the set-up of the job grade policy, a core competency model was developed to articulate the requirements for staff of different levels. The model was later applied to staff recruitment and performance appraisal. For the latter, a new performance appraisal system that incorporated the competencies and measurable performance indicators was formulated. The new system was then communicated to all staff through a series of communication sessions. This effective tool guided staff to contribute to the Bank in a constructive way and differentiated staff performance in an objective manner.

In addition to these people management mechanism, Leadingenes also designed and administered several assessment centres for recruiting management trainees to help the Bank equip with the right breed for further business expansion.

Results

Thanks to all the practical solutions and excellent execution of the above initiatives, today, the Bank is staffed with a stable and competent workforce to expand its card business in full speed. By 2003, the Bank recorded over 1 million card holders with great confidence in continually gaining more market share.