Singapore-based financial institution DBS has been named “World’s Best Bank” by several global publications, such as Euromoney and Global Finance. It has focused on its purpose, pushed the limits of technology to shape the future of banking, and invested in creating a healthier and more diverse workforce.
As the managing director and head of group human resources, Yan Hong Lee works closely with the senior leadership team to drive the company’s strategic people agenda and empower its more than 33,000 employees to make faster, better decisions in line with the bank’s values and priorities.
We spoke with Yan Hong about how DBS fosters a distinctive workplace culture and engages and empowers its employees.
What sets DBS apart from other organizations?
Yan Hong Lee: There are three special ingredients that set us apart. The first is strong and consistent leadership. Our management team has been together for a long time. They’ve set a vision, purpose, mission, and strategy for our organization and communicated it clearly through an easy-to-understand mission of “making banking joyful.” That simple mantra has helped our employees engage and actualize our goals very successfully. We also use a balanced scorecard to prioritize our efforts; it’s created from the top down and bottom up, so everyone buys in.
Next, we foster a culture that supports our purpose. DBS was created 54 years ago to help in the development of Singapore. We are here to do good things for people and make a positive difference; that is deeply rooted in our organization’s psyche. When we laid out our vision to be “the best bank for a better world,” it wasn’t something we were trying to discover or overlay onto our existing culture. At the same time, we want to make sure the culture we build has a tangible impact on our business, customers, and the community we serve. We had to become more agile, flexible, and customer centric. We started by streamlining our matrixed organizational structure to three levels. Now we also have a horizontal organization that enables us to move faster by removing roadblocks, breaking down silos, and leveraging data more effectively.
We want to make sure the culture we build has a tangible impact on our business, customers, and the community we serve.
Our third ingredient is the way in which we deliver our employee value proposition: “Live Fulfilled: Be the Best, Be the Change, and Be the Difference.” We are committed to building the long-term careers of our people. For instance, we identified more than 8,000 employees for upskilling in 2020 so they could master new skills and have new career opportunities. We offer more than 10,000 learning programs and job exposure opportunities so our employees get to experience what it’s like to do a different job in the bank. Today, one out of four vacancies in the bank are filled by our own people. We were also ahead of the curve when we launched several flexible work arrangements in 2020, including hybrid work and a 100 percent work-from-home option for six months for employees with caregiving responsibilities or parents with newborns.
State of Organizations: Lessons from leaders
How did you get employees on board with the transformational changes?
Yan Hong Lee: Change must 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, relationship-led, innovative, decisive, and everything fun! Our PRIDE! values and behaviors are deeply embedded across all our people programs and processes, including performance appraisals, during which we evaluate employees on the “how” in addition to the “what”; during our recruitment process, through which we screen for candidates who are the right fit for our culture; promotions; and in our various leadership development programs.
We sought ways to empower our employees, trust them more, and give them more freedom to make decisions. We delegated decisions to the lowest possible level; 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 allows people to speak up and take risks. For example, during meetings, we give everyone a chance to contribute and encourage the most senior employees to speak last. We ask employees to play devil’s advocate to create space for differing opinions.
The State of Organizations 2023
How has DBS further fostered that psychological safety and mental wellness?
Yan Hong Lee: 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. We’ve been able to do that in a way many other companies haven’t, and it has been a critical element of our success.
Employees have several opportunities to directly access senior leaders. These include a quarterly bank-wide 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 and understand sentiment on the ground. “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. Our CEO also hosted a series of “Candid Conversations” last year with employees across different departments and ranks to understand their experience in working for DBS.
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.
This interview is part of the Lessons from leaders collection within The State of Organizations 2023 report. These conversations were conducted by members of McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice with leaders of organizations that exemplify best practices relating to the ten most significant shifts facing organizations today.
Yan Hong Lee is the managing director and head of group human resources at DBS.
Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.
