The State of Organizations 2023 - Flipbook - Page 43
How did you get employees on board
with the transformational changes you
put in place?
most senior employees to speak last. We
ask employees to play devil’s advocate to
create space for differing opinions.
Change has to start at the top, with a
strong and consistent leadership team
like ours, and then involve employees
at all levels. People support what they
help create. We went to our employees
and asked them what they needed to
take the organization forward. That’s
how we came up with our PRIDE!
values: purpose-driven, relationshipled, innovative, decisive, and everything
fun! We deeply embedded these values
in our people programs and processes,
including performance appraisals,
recruitment, promotions, and various
leadership development programs.
How has DBS further fostered that
psychological safety and mental
wellness?
We also sought ways to empower our
employees and give them more freedom
to make decisions. We delegated
decisions to the lowest possible level and
started trusting our employees more. For
instance, performance and compensation
decisions, which were managed by senior
vice presidents and above in the past, are
now made by line managers. Customer
service representatives are empowered
to make decisions on anything less
than $200. We encourage people to
experiment— just not make preventable
mistakes— even if they fail. We created a
safe environment that would allow people
to speak up and take risks. For example,
during meetings, we give everyone a
chance to contribute and encourage the
More about
Yan
Hong Lee
Managing director and head of
We’ve created a lot of transparency
and accessibility, which feeds into
psychological safety and helps us meet
our goals around DE&I [diversity, equity,
and inclusion], employee engagement,
mental health and well-being, etcetera.
Employees have several opportunities
to directly access senior leaders. These
include a quarterly bankwide employee
town hall with a Q&A segment hosted by
CEO Piyush Gupta and joined by other
group management committee leaders.
Senior leaders regularly visit offices
across markets and host their own town
halls, skip-level meetings, and small
group sessions to connect with staff.
“Tell Piyush” is another open channel for
employees to write to our CEO with any
questions or ideas they have, and each
question receives a personal reply.
This level of transparency has led
to some fantastic results. Nearly 97
percent of our employees complete the
engagement surveys we field annually,
which tells us people trust that we take
their opinions seriously. In the most
recent survey, 91 percent told us they
felt DBS was a psychologically safe
environment. We were very proud of that.
group human resources of
Development Bank of Singapore
Yan Hong has more than 30 years of
experience working in human capital
management across a spectrum of
industries and geographies. She has
worked at General Motors, Hewlett
Packard, and Citigroup on topics related
to compensation and benefits, talent
and performance management, learning
and development, employee relations,
and organizational design.
At DBS, Yan Hong drives the overall
strategic people agenda of the group by
setting the direction and spearheading
various functions and initiatives in the
organizational growth of the bank. Under
her leadership, DBS has won a number of
global and regional accolades, including
being certified by Kincentric as Regional
Best Employer in Asia–Pacific, as well as
Country Best Employer in Singapore and
other markets for several years. For the
sixth year running, DBS has been named
to the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index.
‘We went to our employees
and asked them what
they needed to take the
organization forward.’
March 2023
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