OUR APPROACH TO HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

The Bank’s HR processes are governed by a comprehensive suite of policies and standards which ensure the equitable treatment of all employees. The policies in place cover aspects such as recruitment, training and development, performance management, compensation and benefits, industrial relations, occupational health and safety and administration matters. Our HR practices extend beyond the legal requirements to embrace industry best practice. Employees are also governed by a Code of Conduct which outlines the professional and ethical conduct that is expected of employees including general conduct, competence, confidentiality, handling of material information and conflicts of interest among others.

The Human Resources Department is responsible for implementing the Board’s HR strategy and strives to continuously improve the employee value proposition. Robust governance structures ensure judicious empowerment while an open culture is fostered through ongoing employee engagement mechanisms. The Bank’s HR Governance Structure is as follows.

Team Profile

Our team comprises 2,169 employees who are diverse in their gender, age and ethnic representations. As an equal opportunity employer, we value people’s diversity and recognize this as a vital asset in driving value creation. The Bank female representation is high, both at senior management level and on an overall basis. We are also diverse in terms of ethnic, religious, social backgrounds and age representation. More than half of our employees are located at the Bank’s Head Office while the others operate in our island-wide branch network, categorized into 8 regions.

Permanent employees account for 78% of our cadre while contract employees who account for 18% of the pool are engaged primarily in sales oriented jobs and non-critical functions. We believe that these jobs are suited for younger employees who seek independent decision making and a solid foundation for a career in Banking. Staff turnover levels are relatively high in this category of employees but are in line with the market average. The Bank also provides employment opportunities for interns and trainees. All employees are engaged on a full-time basis.

Total Staff by Employment Contract and Gender

Permanent Employees by Grade and Gender

Senior Management by Gender

Recruitment

Our reputation as an employer of choice has enabled us to attract and retain top talent, despite the increasing competition for skills in the industry. During the year, we recruited 423 employees (excluding outsourced personnel) to support our ambitious growth aspirations. The Bank’s recruitment processes are guided by a recruitment policy that is transparent and leaves no room for any form of discrimination. In order to nurture a strong pipeline of talent, and improve retention, employees are encouraged to apply for internal vacancies as much as possible. During the year we promoted 36 employees in this manner. External recruitments happen primarily at entry level and mainly comprise school leavers, newly qualified professionals and/or university graduates. The Bank has partnered with several universities to attract newly qualified graduates of selected disciplines. The statistics of the new recruits in 2017 are given below;

New Recruits by Location

New Recruits by Age Group

New Recruits by Staff Category

Gender Equality

The Bank is an equal opportunity employer and does not practice any form of gender-based discrimination in recruitment, promotions and/or when determining remuneration. The overall female representation rate amounts to 39%, while female employees form over 30% of the senior management group and of the managerial and supervisory categories. The Leadership Team comprises 7 female members. In 2017, 47 employees took maternity leave while 97.8% of them returned to work upon completion of their leave, demonstrating the Bank’s commitment towards retaining females through flexible working arrangements that foster better worklife balance.

Average Basic Salary Ratio Designation wise – Female to Male

Average Basic Salary Ratio Region wise – Female to Male

Engagement

We believe in fostering an open culture, where employees are encouraged to put forward their suggestions on improving the organization. Our open culture is reflected by the high level of engagement we maintain with employees, facilitated by numerous formal and informal mechanisms. These include, performance appraisals, multi-level staff meetings, crossfunctional team engagement and a year-round calendar of sports and cultural events. All employees are encouraged to engage with senior management through regular Town Hall meetings and multi-level staff meetings. The CEO also communicates with employees through email and shares important news, achievements and strategic changes of the Bank. The Bank regularly conducts Q&A sessions, where employees are given the opportunity to voice any concerns regarding a process, policy or practice in place at the Bank.

Recreational events are organized by the NDB Staff Recreational Club (NDBSRC) and include multi-religion celebrations, staff trips including families, NDB kiddies party and the annual NDB dinner dance. The annual trip, NDB annual dinner dance and the NDB kiddies’ party are open to family members of employees. This year, the NDBSRC went an extra mile and organized an overseas trip for the employees. Around 1800 – 2000 staff had the opportunity to select one destination out of 3 countries (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) to spend their weekend with their families. The annual dinner dance this year was organized in a grand scale at the Shangri – La hotel, Colombo accommodating a total of 700 employees and their spouses. During the year, the Human Resources Department also organized logistics for the staff to view the Nawam Maha Perahera of Gangaramaya Temple, within the comforts of the office premises.

To harness personal development which results in professional excellence, the Bank inaugurated the NDB Toastmasters club in 2013 and joined the Global Toastmasters fraternity. This has helped many to improve their oral communication while giving them confidence to participate in professional forums. The Bank shows recognition of employees for the special skills and commitment displayed in non – job related areas. Thus, annually a recognition programme is organized on a grand scale by the Human Resources Department to appreciate and reward the commitment shown by the NDBSRC members, NDB Toastmasters, our very own NDB “Skillart” music group and the talented photographers of the Bank. In the same programme, employees who represented the Bank in the mercantile arena and brought glory to the Bank through their achievements were also recognized.

Performance Management

The Bank strives to nurture a performance-driven culture through holistic and equitable performance management practices. Remuneration structures are unbiased and comprise guaranteed pay and performance-based variable pay. Remuneration is determined following engagement with remuneration consultants and with reference to salary surveys. The annual performance appraisal serves as an effective tool in discussing self-evaluations, areas for improvement and training needs. The CEO directly communicates the principles of compensation, increments and variable pay details as well as aspects of the senior management’s performance evaluation criteria to increase transparency regarding remuneration. The details of employees who received regular performance and career developments reviews is given below;

Excluding outsourced staff

Compensation and Benefits

In addition to guaranteed pay, the Bank provides an array of attractive monetary and non-monetary benefits to employees which include the following;

• Guaranteed cash and allowances: fuel/ travelling allowance, leave pay/holiday allowance, job specific allowances, accommodation assistance, weekend/ holiday banking allowance

• Variable pay- Performance bonus, sales incentives and overtime to eligible staff

• Reimbursable expenses: Professional and club subscriptions, education assistance for employees completing MBAs

• Other perquisites- Holiday bungalow/ annual trip, medical insurance schemes, parental leave, Toast Masters club, Recreation club, Disability and invalidity coverage

• Subsidised loan benefits- Housing, vehicles, sundry loans, share ownership plans and employee share ownership plan

• Retirement benefits- EPF/ETF/Gratuity

Of the benefits given above, holiday allowances, accommodation assistance, weekday/holiday banking allowance, performance bonus, subscriptions and educational assistance are not provided to contract employees while different schemes/ conditions are applicable for medical insurance, housing and vehicle loans and employee share option plans.

Training and Development

The training and development arm of the Bank has taken steps to enter into agreements with professional bodies in Sri Lanka such as the Institute of Bankers Sri Lanka (IBSL), apex banking body in Sri Lanka, Centre for Banking Studies (CBS) and CIMA Sri Lanka. The Institute of Bankers Sri Lanka facilitated in-house Diploma and Certificate courses to employees enabling them to obtain educational qualifications. E.g. Diploma in Credit Management, Certificate for Branch Banking Operations. The programs offered have been off-the-shelf programs as well as programs that have been customized in order to meet the requirements of the Bank. In no uncertain terms these qualifications have facilitated personal growth and development of the members of the NDB team. E.g Best practices for Bank Tellers, Branch Banking Operations for non-Branch Staff.

Training programs are not restricted to those offered by local institutions. Affiliations with foreign training bodies such as Euromoney, Marcus Evens, CRISIL, India and Singapore Institute of Management have been arrived at. E.g. SME Credit Risk programs, Optimizing and updating Assets & Liability Management. Methods such as evaluations, presentations are built into reinstating learning from foreign training.

Short evening presentations done by eminent speakers, pioneers of various industries including our customers and volunteer staff members are part of the annual training calendar in order to add variety and spice.

NDB E-Learning platform extends the opportunity to employees to learn at their own pace and convenience, irrespective of the geographical restrictions with no interference to their work responsibilities with real time evaluations. This empowers the employees to take control of their own development through training. The platform will have modules published in terms of soft skills to operational and technical related subject matter plus various other materials on newspaper articles, articles published by employees of NDB, local training programme contents on various subjects etc. The Bank is proud to have more than 34 e-learning modules where almost 100% of staff has met their learning needs by using these modules.

In terms of reinforcing learning, the Bank has taken some unique initiatives. All new team members to the Bank on a compulsory basis go through two value inculcating behavioural change programmes done at the Induction Programme and after serving the organization for one year, at the “In-retrospect” training programme. “In-retrospect” programme which is a programme to look back at the one year spent in the Bank is designed around “Living OUR Values”. Team building activities of the training programme are also designed around these key elements of the values so as to reinforce them in the employees.

Previously, learning operated in silos where learning professionals had little interaction or input from other areas of the business. Breaking the mindset of people and bringing them out of their rigid environment was a challenging task for NDB during the recent past.

Post revamping the organizational values during the year 2016, NDB partnered with 361 Degrees, a reputed training institute and brought in a new value & activity based training programme “Catch her if you can”. Through these sessions staff members are given an opportunity to express their views and provide feedback on what they think the management should do to make NDB a leading brand proposition in Sri Lanka.

In addition to the above, NDB also facilitates experiential learning sessions and outbound training programmes to bring in that mindset of working together as a team.

A comprehensive special Credit Officer workshop was conducted for credit staff reiterating the credit evaluation process in appraising the SME customer portfolio. This programme was moderated by a reputed industry professional.

NDB Bank’s training initiatives were recognized by two awards at the awarding ceremonies conducted by the World Human Resources Congress in Colombo & Singapore. The training unit was awarded the “Best Employer Brand Award” and the Best “Training Partnership with External Vendors Awards” at the Sri Lanka Training & Development Awards 2017 and “Best Employer Brand Award” and “Most Innovative Training and Development Award” at the Asia Training and Development Leadership Awards 2017.

Average Training Hours per Year per Employee

Average Training Hours - Gender wise

Average Training Hours - Designation wise

Health and Safety

The Bank recognizes the importance of providing a healthy work environment as well as the need to balance one's demands of work and family. Accordingly, Corporate Fitness Centre facilities continue to be offered to all employees.

In addition to the comprehensive gymnasium, NDB Bank also offers a number of recreational activities to help employees pursue their interests and find ways to unwind; Such as NDB Health Week, Work Life Balance Week, Aerobics, Yoga and Social Dancing sessions etc. These awareness sessions, health screening and check-ups have been truly beneficial to the employees as well as their family members.

Continuous first aid programmes and psychological first aid is provided to staff at all times, to assist them while on duty. First aid drills are conducted by the Human Resources Department to provide a practical experience for the employees on how to conduct basic first aid for common injuries in case of an accident during work. Each department has a first aider allocated and they will be the first responders in case of an emergency. In addition to the drill, a seminar on first aid is also conducted for the first aiders annually.

Seminars on life style management, how to prevent diabetes, blood pressure and heart attacks, parenting and other health related seminars are organized to enable the staff to take a break from the routine work and think about the wellbeing of their families and children.

Employee Relations

The bank endeavours to maintain harmonious relations with all levels of staff. The CEO and top management conduct regular meetings with staff, one prime initiative is “Coffee with CEO”. The Bank does not currently have collective agreements in place. Employees are given approximately two weeks of notice prior to significant operational changes, enabling us to maintain employee satisfaction and motivation while implementing changes.

Grievance Handling

Grievances among employees can be a major reason that could adversely affect employee morale. The Bank ensures to handle the grievances of the employees in a professional manner and resolve the grievance with minimum time.

There is a clearly laid down procedure, through a Grievance Handling Policy, for employees to have their grievances heard and resolved in a fair and methodical manner.

The purpose of the grievance policy of the Bank is to help employees maintain a positive work environment with respect and responsibility towards each other. While the Bank will endeavour to provide such an environment, the employees may raise specific grievances or complaints, be it real or perceived.

Retention

Succeeding in employee retention efforts requires thinking from the employees’ point of view. All employees are different and each has unique desires and goals. However, it can be safely presumed that every employee expects to be paid at or above market rates and have good benefits. Employees expect recognition and rewards, both intrinsic and extrinsic for the effort put in to complete the tasks given in an orderly and timely manner. The Bank has identified these requirements and has addressed them accordingly.

Exit interviews are conducted by senior members of the Human Resources Department at the point of resignation, to identify the reason for resigning and also to retain the employee whenever possible. The exit interview is also used to further improve the HR climate of the Bank.

Resignations - Age wise

Resignations - Region wise