Finding the right talent has never been easy. To sustain the culture of the organisation, companies must ensure that their people have the right skillsets that fit the role and that they share the firm’s vision and values. In recent years, more organisations are tapping technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to refine their recruitment processes.  

One such organisation is leading global bank United Overseas Bank (UOB). UOB has transformed and enhanced the efficiency of its recruitment process by using technology such the AI-powered pymetrics solution to evaluate candidates and to automate some processes.  

In an interview, Dean Tong, Head, Group Human Resources (HR), UOB shares more about the Bank’s unique talent recruitment and management model which is underpinned by technology and human expertise. 

What is UOB’s focus when it comes to HR transformation?

With the banking sector undergoing transformational change and job roles being redefined by new technologies, UOB’s focus is to ready our people for the future.

We do this through our emphasis on a culture of continual learning and talent development. We have several training programs for our employees that work in tandem to encourage both the right mindset and the acquisition of essential technical skills to enable them to be agile and adaptable as they advance in their careers.  

For instance, our group-wide flagship learning and development program, Better U, which we launched in October 2019 is designed to equip our more than 26,000-strong global workforce with foundational future-focused knowledge and skills such as nurturing a growth mindset, complex problem-solving, digital awareness, human-centred design and data storytelling. 

We also support our people’s professional development at UOB through a systematic performance management framework and structured leadership programs. For example, our performance management process takes into account each employee’s performance as well as how they have lived the Bank’s values through their behaviors and decision making at work. 

We also have an accelerated career development program to help groom our next generation of leaders at UOB. 

How are you using technology to transform ways of working within the HR function?

At UOB, we have been working closely with our colleagues in Group Technology and Operations and Corporate Real Estate Services over the years to build a better workplace, work-life and workforce where our people can be agile as they work within and outside of the office. 

The investments we have made in our technology infrastructure and digital tools enabled our people to stay connected and productive during the COVID-19 outbreak. As early as February, we moved swiftly to activate our business continuity plans to enable more of our people to work from home and to stay safe. During Singapore’s circuit breaker period, we were able to support safe and secure remote working arrangements for more than 18,000 colleagues across our international network without any disruption to our customers and stakeholders. 

The workplace tools and enterprise mobility and productivity solutions that are available to all our people such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Yammer Workspace as well as resources on MyUOB, the Group’s intranet, also enable us to collaborate with each other remotely. In April alone, our colleagues across our network spent close to 125,000 hours collaborating online on video and audio meetings through Microsoft Teams.

To enable our people to take charge of their learning anywhere and at any time, we have fully digitalized almost all of our training programmes including Better U. Many of our training modules have also been designed to be in bite-sized content so that our colleagues can digest them easily wherever they may be. 

Within the Group Human Resources (HR) function specifically, we are in the process of migrating our core HR system to a secure cloud-based system to enable our team to access information and to collaborate easily and securely whether they are working in the office or from their homes. This frees up the team from administrative and operational tasks so that they can address more strategic people and organisational issues such as employee engagement and upskilling.

In the area of talent acquisition, how has the use of technology enabled you to enhance the recruitment process and what value has that added to the business? 

At UOB, we believe in using technology to enable us to drive performance. By combining the use of AI-powered solutions such as pymetrics with the experience and expertise of the Bank’s HR professionals, we are able to enhance the efficiency of our recruitment process through automating some processes.  

We currently use pymetrics’ behavioral science and AI technology tool to assess each candidate’s unique cognitive, social, and emotional attributes, and how these behaviors translate at work. 

Using results from the assessment, we are able to select candidates who share the same values as the Bank and possess the right aptitude and attitude to be a personal banker at UOB. Since we integrated pymetrics together with an AI chatbot into our recruitment model for UOB personal banker roles, we have been able to shorten the duration of our recruitment process by 40 minutes per candidate. Our personal bankers are also twice as likely to remain with the Bank since we implemented this award-winning recruitment model. 

What are the challenges faced during this transformation journey, and how did you work with your technology partners to address some of those concerns?

With any form of change management, it was imperative for us to demonstrate the importance of and need for the changes as well as the benefits to our people. 

For example, when we launched our suite of enterprise mobility tools such as Microsoft Teams, people still defaulted to other platforms such as WhatsApp as they had a comfort level in doing so. However, when most of us had to move our workplace from the office to our homes, the benefits of these tools became more apparent. In just two months, from February to April this year, the number of minutes spent by our people on audio calls through Microsoft Teams jumped from 375 minutes to an astounding 4.7 million minutes. 

Our training programs which can be accessed digitally, such as Better U as well as our resource library of more than 6,000 courses, are also popular among our people who tap the convenience and mobility of online learning. Since the start of 2019, our colleagues have completed more than 300,000 training videos and courses on LinkedIn Learning. 

Within our recruitment processes, the positive results that we have seen in using technological tools such as a reduced attrition rate are appreciated by our business partners. 

While we have started with using pymetrics to hire personal bankers; we are looking to broaden this for more roles such as wealth bankers in the coming years. 

What is the next phase for UOB as it transitions to the new reality of work?  

We have a long term focus on ensuring our people are equipped and ready to seize future opportunities and to build successful and fulfilling careers. We also want to build a future-focused workplace that attracts and retains the best and brightest talents. 

This year, we will be enhancing our Better U programme to introduce specialised tracks in which our people could deepen their skills in areas such as data analytics and project management. 

As the government and companies work together to help more Singaporeans find employment opportunities among the challenges COVID-19 is creating, we are also stepping up to do our part. 

One way we are doing this is through offering traineeship via the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Program and the SGUnited Traineeships Program. Through these traineeship opportunities, we offer meaningful on-the-job training and a structured development plan to enable them to develop and to deepen new skills or knowledge progressively. While completing the traineeship, they will also have a monthly training allowance to help manage their expenses as they reskill. The knowledge and skills that our trainees gain by the end of the traineeship will hold them in good stead as they pursue roles with us or within the banking and finance industry.