This article is part of a series to enrich our understanding of findings from the HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Empower and Evolve research study. For this edition of Experts Take, we spoke to Sherriza Nor Rashidi, Head of Planning and Communication at CIMB.

With over 20 years of experience in different aspects of HR management and across diverse industries like service manufacturing, construction, oil and energy, Sherriza is a passionate HR leader. In her current leadership role at CIMB, she heads a unit of 1,400 people and is improving the employee experience and driving performance through aligning tech and data processes with the organisational culture and values.

The conversation helped build on the insights of APAC's largest HR study. The Darwinbox and People Matters’ landmark report, HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Empower and Evolve gathered responses from over 1,200 HR practitioners, 350 CXOs and around 1,500 employees. It brings together both employer and employee voices to showcase evolving priorities and enable strategic change.

As part of the HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Experts Take series in association with Darwinbox, we had Vikrant Khanna, Global Head - Value Management at Darwinbox take look at how the seasoned HR leader envisions agility and experience, and the role company values in building for a successful 2024.

In this talk, Sherriza highlighted the following significant HR transformation trends:

• Decoding the EPICC value systems model at CIMB
• Understanding the changing scope of talent management
• Analysing the role of technology in HR transformation

The EPICC value systems model at CIMB

CIMB is a large bank with a presence in several nations and offers consumer, retail and corporate banking services to its clients. “While we are committed to increasing our profit and revenues like any other business, we renewed our efforts to build a purpose-driven organisation for effective talent management and higher efficiency. To this effect, we reset our culture and values to make them more robust and align them with the changing world. We led this transformation during the pandemic to ensure that our new team is ready to build back stronger and faster once we return to normalcy,” Sherriza explains.

CIMB follows the EPICC values model and has helped reset the vision, strategy and mission of all roles in the company. Here’s what EPICC stands for:

• Enabling talent: empowering people to enhance clarity in their roles and driving innovation
• Passion: fostering obsession with building the right customer and people experiences
• Integrity: deepening the hallmark of any organisation in the BFSI industry
• Customer centricity: focusing on customer convenience and personalisation like never before
• Collaboration: building linkages and integrations across teams and functions for higher efficiency

CIMB focused on preparing leaders and managers to enable this shift so the rest of the workforce felt inspired to follow their lead. “Having dedicated time to have a dialogue between team members to discuss feedback and mistakes resulted in higher peer-to-peer sharing, which increased engagement and trust across the board,” Sherriza says. CIMB also aligned different HR functions, such as performance management, rewards and culture, with EPICC values to offer employees consistency and familiarity.

Pushing the boundaries of talent management

Finding candidates with the right skills, ensuring their progress and engagement and retaining them is more challenging than ever, according to her. She says that in today’s landscape, employees are choosing employers, which means organisations must offer a unique value proposition to attract skilled professionals. “We have broadened our recruitment strategy to onboard more vendors, which is not common in a risk-averse industry like banking.

Following the ‘Build, Buy, Borrow’ approach in talent management has helped us leverage the potential of both internal and external talent. To build stable work environments during the pandemic and leadership transitions, CIMB organised sessions to help people manage emotions, deal with stress and optimise their energy. There were also sessions dedicated to talking about interests and hobbies beyond work. The company modified its rewards framework to incentivise people who work across different functions and also leveraged CSR initiatives for team-building purposes. “All these efforts resulted in better client satisfaction scores, NPS and employee engagement rates.” she shares.

Role of HR-tech in enhancing agility and EX

The experience that employees get in an organisation determines their purpose and shared values, says Sherriza. Technology is necessary to build a positive and meaningful experience, but HR must be careful not to get distracted by industry hype and buzzwords. For example, she explains it’s vital for HR professionals to understand different technologies and be aware of the digitisation process before implementing them.

Another common challenge organisations face when implementing large-scale talent management reforms, like internal mobility of resources, is that managers tend to hold onto high-performing team members. “To solve this challenge, we have created a central repository of all information, resources and work accessible by all managers. This has alleviated the anxieties of middle-level managers to an extent.”

Download the full HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Empower and Evolve report here.