It is said that human capital is an institution's most precious asset. Do you agree with that idea?
Entirely. In our organisation, our people are our strength; they are the intangible asset that will guarantee the sustainability of our services over a long period. We believe that each of our employees makes us Absa Bank Moçambique, and so we bring diverse perspectives together as we create the future. We trust, value and invest in people so that they can reach their full potential. We believe that the skills we bring together in terms of professional training, competences, abilities, experience and human outlook are the differentiating factors that drive our institution's innovation and its adaptation to emerging scenarios, contributing significantly to our performance in the market and to our being recognised as an employer of choice.
We value cultural diversity in our organisation because it is a factor that adds value when we have to make decisions and, although each of our employees has their own particularities, it is through collaboration, courage, honesty and energy that we live our culture and bring possibilities to life.
The world is constantly changing and evolving, with new trends, and it is essential that people adapt quickly to these changes, gain the competences and abilities to respond positively to the challenges imposed and keep pace with this evolution. Without a doubt, every skilled employee is better able to meet the demands of the market and the expectations of the employer, which is why we regard training and investment in the capabilities of our people as the key to their personal development and, above all, to achieving our collective objectives as an institution.
It is worth mentioning that, at Absa, besides investing in the professional training of our employees, we focus on other competences that allow us to equip our people to be the bank of the future. The training and development options that the bank makes available to its employees are tailored to the new needs of the financial sector and to content taught by international educational institutions, through our digital training platform.
How does Absa motivate its employees and ensure their well-being?
Besides having a strong organisational culture and knowing that our strength is our people, our pillars rest on collaboration and co-creation, and we have a clear benefits policy, as well as the ability to create an exclusive employee experience throughout their entire journey.
We recognise the potential of our people and invest in a thought leadership programme that allows us to bring out the best in each of our specialists. We are motivated and encouraged to be a winning team and we always play to win; however, we are brave and we know that, throughout the process of growth, failures are inevitable, and it is from them that we learn to be better every day. For us, the well-being of our people is a priority, since it is what will be reflected proportionally in professional performance. We have a culture of feedback, which allows us to respond to our people's needs in this regard, as well as providing information and tips on well-being and mental health through talks given by specialists.
We seek to improve our employees' productivity by instilling a flexible working routine and allowing them to manage and fulfil their responsibilities in the way they judge most effective, and what we seek is to enhance the productivity of each individual. We recently introduced new ways of working in order to bring even greater flexibility and comfort to our people, who can work from the office, from home or in a hybrid model in which some working days are spent in the office and others at home.
We promote a spirit of collaboration, seeking to establish a more united and coordinated working environment. We pay particular attention to the internal climate of our organisation; we want everyone to be satisfied and to feel an integral part of our structure, so we promote constant dialogue and carry out an employee satisfaction survey every year.
We substantially cultivate the development of emotional intelligence in the workplace so that each of our employees knows how to deal, in the best possible way, with the many challenges typical of a professional career. Proof of this is that we were awarded and certified as a “Top Employer Africa 2022” by the Top Employers Institute.
With the pandemic, what were the bank's main challenges as regards its human resources?
Covid-19 came to dictate new ways of being and living in every aspect of social life, and at Absa we were not immune to the institutionalisation of these new patterns. One of the points worth highlighting following the outbreak of the pandemic was the mass adoption of “remote working” and the application of social distancing.
The pandemic also accelerated a series of actions. New ways of working, a worldwide trend, were one of them. Driven by the spirit of innovating, deciding and acting quickly that characterises our Africanness, we created conditions for our people to be able to work in the office, at home or in a hybrid model, giving them all the necessary tools.
Moreover, we had to update our internal human resources management policies, adopting new technical tools for remote working, which, naturally, was a challenge, as it was something atypical, coupled with the climate of uncertainty in which the country was living.
It is important that our people feel that we remain close, even when forced to be apart, and to that end we developed various initiatives, in virtual format, for interaction, collaboration and the sharing of information and of the experiences we were living through in these new times. We created psychological support platforms available at all times to ensure support for our people and their families.
We temporarily suspended our graduate programme. It was difficult, since we know how important this programme is to recent graduates, and to us too, because part of our talent comes from it; and not only that, we want to help young people enrich their skills for other opportunities. And at this moment I am proud to say that we have resumed it, applying the experience of remote and hybrid working.
In recent times we have seen the immersion of the digital. Is Absa's HR department keeping up in some way with this new reality?
The world is changing; the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation, which evolves by the moment. And clearly, if we want to stay current, we have to evolve at the same speed. Banking had to adjust quickly.
We have improved the quality and increased the content of our digital training platforms, which any employee can access from a mobile device and be in constant growth. Another aspect of digital immersion in HR worth highlighting is the automation of part of the processes that used to be done manually and are now handled by our digital systems, giving our employees greater flexibility and productivity.
For us, operating in a digital environment aided by modern platforms and innovative methodologies significantly changes the level of delivery. Digital immersion in our HR department has made recruitment strategies viable, through searches that quantify, analyse and cross-reference information, which allows us to manage time efficiently by selecting the essence of the candidates.
