IT’S surprising to hear how Benito Claudio, a lawyer by profession, discusses with ease and confidence, sometimes even with unbridled passion, everything that pertains to HSBC’s human resources programs and plans.
“My first big job as a lawyer after passing the bar was with Dole Philippines. They were having big union problems, and I was hired as manager for labor relations to replace the one who had barely stayed a year. In less than a month at my new job, I had filed more than a hundred cases,” he said.
“Things then only seemed to worsen,” he added.
Dole was his real big lesson on labor relations.
“I quickly learned that dealing with difficult labor union members was not always about going to court. As the court cases were slowly progressing, I began to understand that the union members who seemed to be acting unreasonably had just lost their trust in management, and did not fully understand where management was coming from,” he said.
By painstakingly reaching out to make the company management and labor union members understand each others’ problems, Dole eventually closed the door on this tumultuous era in its local corporate history.
Keeping lines open
For Claudio, the whole experience only strengthened his belief that management and workers should strive to keep communication lines open and to seek ways of improving how they work together.
When he moved 10 years ago to HSBC in the Philippines as senior vice president and head of human relations, he had become a full convert to all forms of employee communications, structured learning methods, CEO road shows, even company family days as methods of bringing not just industrial peace, but also higher growth for the company.
So enamored was Claudio with HR that he even pursued a masters degree in industrial relations at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, completing the course with honors.
Global employee
At HSBC, Claudio is particularly proud of the company’s HR scorecard ratings.
In 2008, for example, the HSBC Group’s annual Global People Survey revealed that 94 percent of employees are proud to work for HSBC, 82 percent say that they would recommend it as a great place to work and 80 percent say that, overall, they are extremely satisfied with HSBC as a place to work.
High scores indeed for a bank which is still in the midst of an industry-wide tumult arising from last year’s collapse of several giant financial institutions.
“I believe HR’s role is to provide the human resource capability of an organization,” Claudio declares. Thus, training interventions of the bank are closely linked with the career development programs of the bank’s employees.
For example, earlier this year, at a time when the global economy was in the grip of a crisis, HSBC held its second career week.
The program highlighted the skills needed to ensure that employees would succeed in their careers.
All activities that week focused on the development of the following skills: communications, intellectual competence, creativity and professional presence.
Each skill had a booth where employees could discuss the different ways by which the skills could be learned and developed, utilizing bank-wide training programs and other learning initiatives and structures.
Next year, with the Group launching the HSBC Business School, Claudio says that a branch manager in the Philippines will be able to receive the same kind of training as a branch manager in China, the UK, Brazil, etc.
Such move only deepens the bank’s commitment to improving personnel skills that will be acceptable in any part of the world.
Stretching
“In our quest for total development of the talents, we aim to provide [employees] with opportunities for skill acquisition and competency building. These programs provide the talents opportunities for stretch assignments, exposing them to areas particularly out of their comfort zone, at the same time allowing them to work closely with peers from institutions of diverse backgrounds,” according to Claudio.
HSBC has also partnered with the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in the design and delivery of a customized learning program for selected employees.
This five-day program focused on imparting leadership and strategy thinking skills in the 21st century. The program was also attended by executives of seven other world-class companies, which only contributed to the diversity of knowledge and experience of those who attended.
The bank likewise pursues a Future Leaders Program (FLP) that groups five of its employees with five other peers from various partner companies to work on a real business case for an organization with an identified business need.
The business partner of the FLP pilot run in 2009 is Gawad Kalinga.
Finally, the HSBC’s Management Trainee Program is aimed at ensuring that there is a robust pool of banking generalists in its leadership pipeline through training and career development modules.
Solid platform
This year, the bank was nominated by the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines for the Employer of the Year award on the strength of its balanced and effective approach to the concerns of its various stakeholders.
The accolades simply reflect a solid company program that genuinely responds to people’s concerns. Some of the other bank-wide programs are:
Mark Online. A web-based communication tool where employees are able to give suggestions, feedback and pose questions to the CEO.
Good to Great Awards. A rewards program designed to motivate employees to think outside the box and to keep thinking of how to improve processes, systems and policies.
Interest Clubs. Employees are given the freedom to organize clubs that focus on a wide range of hobbies and interests such as photography, travel, dance, music, sports, etc.
All of the above initiatives, according to Claudio, are effective tools in ensuring that the operating business platform will always provide industrial peace while encouraging teamwork.
